Thammasat University students interested in ASEAN studies, economics, history, political science, sociology, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 24 November Zoom webinar on The Asia Pacific Economies: Challenges and Prospects in 2024.

The event, on Friday, 24 November 2023 at 9am Bangkok time, is organized by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore.

Its website explains:

About the Webinar

The United States is host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 2023. Under the theme “Creating a Resilient and Sustainable Future for All”, APEC member economies have been working towards building a more interconnected, innovative, and inclusive APEC region. The APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting (AELM) will be concluding on 17 November 2023.

The webinar will discuss some of the major outcomes of the AELM and their implications for the region and Singapore in 2024. Additionally, it will present the economic outlook of the APEC region, highlighting the latest insights from the November 2023 issue of the APEC Regional Trends Analysis (ARTA), the flagship publication of the APEC Policy Support Unit. The webinar will also cover the Singapore perspective, including Peru’s hosting of APEC in 2024.

About the Speakers

Carlos Kuriyama is Director of APEC Policy Support Unit (PSU), which is the policy research and analysis arm of APEC. […]

Foo Cher How represents Singapore in the Committee on Trade and Investment at APEC. He is currently serving as the Deputy Director for the Multilateral Trade Policy Division at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore. In his current role, he leads a team in overseeing the portfolio of APEC, G20 and WTO.

The TU Library collection includes several books about different aspects of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Students are invited to register at this link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/8217001010410/WN_YJYLtXR9QPmCajF_GujNoA#/registration

A 2023 Leaders’ Declaration posted on the APEC website on 17 November 2023 declared in part:

2023 APEC Leaders’ Golden Gate Declaration

Creating a Resilient and Sustainable Future for All

• We, the Economic Leaders of APEC, met in San Francisco, California, on November 16-17, 2023. Three decades after the United States hosted the first APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting on Blake Island near Seattle in 1993, it is clear our steady commitment to APEC’s mission has helped our region become a vanguard of global growth. Here in San Francisco, we emphasized that effective policies require, above all, responsiveness to all our people and economies. This commitment has grounded our vision and practical work in San Francisco and throughout the U.S. host year meetings in Honolulu, Palm Springs, Detroit, and Seattle.
• Today we face a different and dynamic set of economic challenges. We must harness technological and economic progress to continue to unleash the enormous potential and tremendous dynamism across our region, spur economic growth, as well as to address all environmental challenges, including climate change. The commitments found within this Golden Gate Declaration build upon the work of previous APEC hosts and move our region towards new ways of bringing resiliency, sustainability, interconnection, innovation and inclusion directly into our priorities and working together to respond to our most pressing economic challenges. Our APEC mission and our practical work remain guided by our commitment, as laid out in the Putrajaya Vision 2040 and the Aotearoa Plan of Action, to an open, dynamic, resilient, and peaceful Asia-Pacific community by 2040, for the prosperity of all our people and future generations. In focusing that vision and work this year on the U.S. theme of “Creating a Resilient and Sustainable Future for All,” we have acknowledged both new challenges that confront us and innovative ways to respond to those challenges.
• The U.S. host year builds on APEC’s Bangkok Goals on the Bio-Circular-Green Economy, which established the goal of progressing sustainable and inclusive economic policies while ensuring they also address environmental challenges. We welcome the San Francisco Principles on Integrating Inclusivity and Sustainability into Trade and Investment Policy (Annex) as well as the ministerial-level deliberations of the 2023 sectoral ministerial meetings for Transportation, Trade, Disaster Management, Food Security, Health and the Economy, Energy, Women and the Economy, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Finance, including the Non-Binding Just Energy Transition Principles for APEC Cooperation; Principles for Achieving Food Security Through Sustainable Agri-Food Systems in the APEC Region. We also welcome the updated Disaster Risk Reduction Framework and Action Plan.
• We reaffirm our determination to deliver a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, inclusive, and predictable trade and investment environment. We also reaffirm the importance of the rules-based multilateral trading system, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its core, which continues to catalyze our region’s extraordinary growth. We are committed to necessary reform of the WTO to improve all of its functions, including conducting discussions with a view to having a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all members by 2024. We call upon APEC economies to work towards the timely and effective implementation of WTO agreements and reaffirm our commitment to engage constructively to ensure MC13 is a success and delivers positive outcomes
• We underscore our commitment to advance economic integration in the region in a manner that is market-driven, including through the work on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific agenda. To this end, we will enhance our capacity building and technical cooperation efforts in support of economies’ readiness to participate in high quality and comprehensive regional undertakings. We will further strengthen our engagement with stakeholders, including the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and increase public-private sector dialogues.
• We will continue to work to ensure a level playing field to foster a favorable trade and investment environment. We reiterate our commitment to accelerate work in response to the APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap (ASCR) Mid-Term Review, with the aim to fully implement the ASCR by 2025. We also reaffirm our commitment to keep markets open and address supply chain disruptions, including by working to support our businesses in building secure, effective, resilient, sustainable, and open supply chains that create a predictable, competitive, and digitally interconnected Asia-Pacific region. By recognizing the unique needs and interests of all stakeholders, we can work towards more inclusive and sustainable policies that ensure our trade and investment equitably benefits all our people and economies. We remain committed to implementing the APEC Connectivity Blueprint (2015-2025) by strengthening physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity. We will intensify efforts to promote regional, sub-regional and remote area connectivity. In this regard, we reaffirm the importance of quality infrastructure development and investment.
• The world continues to confront profound challenges posed by the impacts of climate change. We recognize that more intensive efforts are needed for economies to accelerate their clean, sustainable, just, affordable, and inclusive energy transitions through various pathways, consistent with global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions / carbon neutrality by or around mid-century, while taking into account the latest scientific developments and different domestic circumstances. In doing so, we endeavor to unleash a new era of decent jobs, investment, economic growth, and ensure energy, security, resilience, and access in the region. We recall our commitment to rationalize and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, while recognizing the importance of providing those in need with essential energy services. To reach this goal, we will continue our efforts in an accelerated manner. […]

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)