The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Public-Private Dialogue on Services took place in Nha Trang city, the central province of Khanh Hoa on February 23. 

Opening the event, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Multilateral Trade Policy Department Pham Quynh Mai said trade and services play an increasingly important role in global trade and economic growth of each nation and region. 

Commodity trade and manufacturing increasingly rely on services, such as distribution, telecommunication and finance, among others, she said, citing that economies with high rate of trade and services in their gross domestic product (GDP) prove to perform better than those strong in agriculture and manufacturing.  

In 2015, APEC leaders endorsed the APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap (ASCR) at the 24th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting with a view to creating a fair and transparent service environment in the region until 2025. 

Member economies targeted that APEC would achieve an over 6.8 percent service growth and the percentage rate of added value of the services sector in regional GDP will be higher than the world’s average level. 

To that end, APEC needs to exert further efforts to realise ASCR with closer liaison between APEC committees and working groups. During the roadmap implementation, the business community and other sectors’ feedback play an important role in building policies and working programmes. 

At the event, policymakers and business representatives discussed ways to intensify APEC cooperation in major services such as distribution, transport and logistics. 

The dialogue, as part of the first APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM-1) underway in Nha Trang, is expected to provide a platform for the APEC Group on Services and other forums to continue building capacity support programmes for its members, particularly developing economies in the above fields.

VNA