| Wani Roslan |
THE Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council (ABAC) Brunei members yesterday presented the ABAC Report to Pehin Orang Kaya Pekerma Dewa Dato Seri Setia Lim Jock Seng, Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade II.
The ABAC Report was handed over by Hafimi bin Abdul Haadii and Soon Loo which carries the theme ‘Quality Growth and Human Development’ and contains practical steps for APEC economies to address current challenges facing the region and calls for the respective priorities including consolidating progress towards the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP); facilitating micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) development through access to global markets and new technologies; promoting economic growth, diversification and sustainability; strengthening the rule of law and economic and social sustainability.
In a press statement, ABAC said, “ABAC remains committed in sharing APEC’s goals on free trade and investment and to work hard in supporting APEC in attaining trade and investment liberalisation through calling for structural economic reform which promotes good governance and sound regulation that incentivises the growth of services and innovation in the region aimed at helping economies in the region achieve quality growth and improve social stability.”
Hafimi underlined that one of the main highlighting key points is ‘Connecting Youth’ by giving opportunities to graduates in general to do internship programmes outside Brunei where they can earn and learn new skills and return to Brunei and utilise their skills and this can help in dealing with unemployment among graduates.
“The ‘APEC Youth Connect’ – a realistic pilot programme that will be started in Malaysia will be launched this month. We are sending graduates’ resumes which will be submitted to the organisations handling this pilot for placement within various cooperations within Malaysia. It is a four to 12 month programme and they will run through a normal procedure,” she added.
Pehin Orang Kaya Pekerma Dewa Dato Seri Setia Lim Jock Seng, Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade II, receiving the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council (ABAC) Report from the ABAC Brunei members yesterday. – WANI ROSLAN
In addition, the report also called on governments to remain fully committed to realising FTAAP as the best way forward to continue to reduce barriers to trade and investment and to enable goods, services and capital to flow freely among APEC economies.
Pehin Orang Kaya Pekerma Dewa Dato Seri Setia Lim Jock Seng added that Brunei is one of the 10 economies participating in a network of incubators and accelerators around the world that allow businesses to understand what other people are doing to get support and ideas for a company to develop.
“The idea is to map and connect all innovation and incubation centres to establish a network and easily share and cross coordinate with projects and share ideas,” said Hafimi.
“It is going to be us participating on an online platform whereby all these are shared. Our incubators and accelerators will participate in and we will receive the information of what is happening to the other incubators and then our company as well as incubators and accelerators here can then access the database and make things happen,” the minister added.
The other main key point was the ‘Cross-Regional E-Commerce Platform’ where the minister explained that the platform is happening in Brunei and believes that a huge e-commerce platform will be happening in Asean.
“We want Brunei to participate in it and be the first country or economy to be involved in the Pan-Asean Economies Platform,” he said.
Apart from that, ABAC Brunei also lauded the government’s efforts and initiatives in establishing DARE (Darussalam Enterprise) to support small and medium enterprise (SME) development that are very much aligned with ABAC’s goals to expand their role in regional trade and investment as an important means to achieve quality growth and reinforce the benefits of globalisation, particularly as SMEs are the drivers of entrepreneurship and employment.
Closing the connectivity gap remains one of the critical challenges in achieving sound quality growth, as envisioned in the APEC Connectivity Blueprint for 2015-2025. ABAC called on governments to strengthen efforts to develop digital infrastructures that will make the region more efficient, competitive and connected. ABAC Brunei recommends for Brunei to take best practices from APEC economies as part of our strategy to develop and implement a dynamic digital infrastructure.
ABAC also urged governments to avoid over-regulation and promote regulatory quality to enhance resilience and inclusiveness in the region to ensure APEC remains a showcase of best practice in the rule of law and regulatory quality. ABAC Brunei encouraged the government to continue breaking the barriers of trade through efforts to enhance the business ecosystem using the World Bank Ease of Doing Business as a benchmark however, being mindful of the continuous support required to grow and guide our local businesses to compete globally.
ABAC also raised the critical role of finance in sustaining growth and avoiding the middle-income trap and urged governments to encourage legal, policy and institutional reforms and promote financing of infrastructure projects and regional financial integration. ABAC Brunei proposed for the government to support in championing the Islamic Infrastructure Investment Platform (IP3) in facilitating the mobilisation of capital in Islamic institutions to fund infrastructure across the region following the 2015 APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting hosted by the Philippines in Cebu.
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