The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) CEO Summit will put in the spotlight the inclusive-growth theme that the Philippines chose as the host nation, when the largest meeting of top business leaders in the Asia-Pacific region convenes next week.
To be discussed is a set of issues—from human-capital development to leveraging innovation—that seek to make the smaller, disenfranchised groups of the society participate better in global trade.
Apec Business Advisory Council (Abac) Philippines Chairman and Co-Chairman/Alternate Member Doris Magsaysay-Ho and Guillermo M. Luz, respectively, gave a preview of the high-level, three-day summit, themed “Creating The Future: Better, Stronger, Together,” to the BusinessMirror recently.
The Abac is made up of 63 business leaders across the Asia-Pacific region, with each Apec economy having three representatives. The Abac stands as the private-sector voice in the Apec, and is the main organizing body for the annual Apec CEO Summit, which is held days before the Apec Economic Leaders’ Meeting.
The Apec CEO Summit is billed as the premier public-private dialogue venue in Apec, with top CEOs and key government officials coming together for the event.
Helping the marginalized
Magsaysay-Ho noted that what the Philippines wants to focus on in this year’s CEO Summit is the fresh initiatives that will make the benefits of the burgeoning global economy felt by smaller, marginal players.
Luz said that, given the Abac’s broad thrust of moving toward regional integration, the Abac Philippines now wants to assess how the marginalized groups will be affected by the Asia-Pacific integration on different fronts.
“We’ve worked all-year-round and convened seven joint meetings of ministers and CEOs for topics such as trade, life sciences, disaster management, city development, SMEs [small and medium enterpries], energy and transport. The private sector has the ability to drive the [inclusive-growth] agenda,” Luz said.
Summit Day One
On November 16, the first day of the Apec CEO Summit, three sessions will be held, with the first one to be opened by Jollibee Founder, CEO and Chairman—and concurrently the Apec CEO Summit chairman—Tony Tan Caktiong.
The session opening will be followed by President Aquino’s address on “Apec’s Inclusive Growth Imperative,” to set the tone for the rest of the summit.
The second session will delve on “Navigating Uncertainty” for businesses in the context of geopolitical risks, delivered through a “TED [Techology, Entertainment, Design]-type” talk.
Notably, the third session will focus on how innovation plays a part in charting the new businesses, and how Apec economies can tap the proliferation of disruptive innovations.
Magsaysay-Ho underscored the need for this initiative, as these new types of businesses have become key drivers of growth.
“Digital infrastructure for an economy is going to be a necessity, like water and energy. Economies in Apec should build innovation ecosystems, like strengthening ICT [information and communications technology] in colleges and STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics] education; putting regulations around intellectual property; building university-led research centers; mentoring start-ups; and helping start-ups commercialize,” Magsaysay-Ho said.
For the session on innovation and entrepreneurship, no less than Columbian President Juan Manuel Santos and former Taiwanese Vice President Vincent Siew will form part of the panel, along with the CEO of bilateral foreign aid agency Millennium Challenge Corp., Dana Hyde; and the CEO of safety consultancy and certification firm Underwriters Laboratories, Keith Williams.
Summit Day Two
The second day will see AirAsia mogul Tony Fernandes delivering the opening remarks.
Four sessions will take place during the day, with the first session tackling the prospects of Asia-Pacific growth.
Education and health will be the center of discussion for the second session, with Peruvian President Ollanta Humala headlining the panel, as well as the CEOs of JP Morgan Asia Pacific and pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur.
Inclusive growth and sustainability will be the highlight of the second day. A panel—to be led by Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang; Executive Chairman and CEO of Blackberry John Chen; Donald Kanak, head of Prudential Corp. Asia; E. Allan Gabor of Merck Biopharma China; and Asia Society President Josette Sheeran—will tackle the policies on resiliency.
Related to this is another session focusing on effective urban development and infrastructure investment to be led by Lord Mayor of Melbourne Robert Doyle. The City of Melbourne has been recognized as the most livable city by business journal The Economist for five years in a row. Doyle is expected to share insights on how other cities can
emulate Melbourne.
This ties up with the Abac’s push for more investments in sustainability, an area that the Abac sees as a potential growth area.
“As demographics change and populations grow, we expect between now and 2020 there’ll be another billion people; so that means investment in cities, in food, in renewable energy. These are areas that Abac made recommendations to leaders, in terms of removing barriers to investment,” Magsaysay-Ho said.
Better cities
In connection to this, Luz said the Abac will release a report, titled “Building Better Cities,” during the Apec Economic Leaders’ week.
The Building Better Cities report will rank 28 cities, including Cebu and Manila, in terms of livability, sustainability and competitiveness.
“We, together with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, came up with a report, with the broad metrics being the three mentioned. Specific factors—such as city size, regulations, heritage and culture—were taken into consideration,” Luz added. “The whole idea is not to get a judgment, but to create a metric to get these city governments and developers to ask themselves how they want to be in the future. Manila and Cebu are on the list. I can’t say the ranking but you can venture a guess that they’ll be in the bottom half of the list,” Luz said.
The second day of the summit will close on a broad discussion on Asia-Pacific trade in the context of emerging major trade initiatives, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
The discussion will be led by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-Ying, with the heads of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Asian Development Bank, Angel Gurria and Takehiko Nakao, respectively, completing the panel.
Summit Day Three
The last day of the Apec CEO Summit will primarily focus on country leaders, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin invited to deliver remarks before the major panel discussion on the theme “Securing Growth in a Volatile World” begins.
According to a draft program, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong were invited to take part in the culminating panel discussion.
Finally, expected to deliver their respective closing remarks for the summit are Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama.
The CEO Summit will gather 16 leaders, five insight speakers, 20 executives and thought leaders, and close to 1,100 delegates.
People connectivity
The connectivity of people, especially of skilled workers, in the region will be one of the hallmark themes in the summit.
“The idea of connectivity is very important. There is a connectivity blueprint, which speaks about people-to-people [P2P] connectivity, institutional connectivity and physical connectivity,” Magsaysay-Ho said. “For the P2P [connectivity], so far, when you look at the Apec agenda, a lot of it focuses on the trade aspect, financial aspects, but very little of people connectivity. It seems to be the last frontier to be able to integrate mobility,” the Abac 2015 chairman said.
Magsaysay-Ho said the Abac Philippines has been pushing for discussions in the region for better and more effective mobility for people in Asia Pacific.
“The Abac Philippines has, for quite a long time, promoted and made recommendations around the need for Apec to create a new framework for the management of mobility of people around the region, and this has become important for business because of the demographic changes that are causing huge shortages in labor at all skills levels across the world,” she said.
The Philippines has been known to be at the forefront of the demographic shifts across the world, being one of the economies that will benefit from it.
This, as the Philippines—starting this year up until 2050—will be within the “demographic sweet spot”—or loosely when a great majority of the population are of working age.
At the end of the third quarter of the year, the country’s Investor Relations Office said that, based on official projection, the country’s working-age population—or those between 15 and 64 years old—accounts for 66.6 percent of the total population of 101.6 million.
The government has also reported in its midyear economic briefing that it has been “actively investing” in the country’s human capital—more particularly in the education and health-care system—to fully realize this demographic dividend.
The demographic dividend that the country enjoys is in contrast to what other countries in the region are experiencing because of their aged population, thus, highlighting the need for the sharing of work force in the region for increased productivity.
The Philippines has been long known to be a heavy exporter of human assets, as seen in the volume of Filipino migrant workers, who have been among the pillars of the economy because of their contribution to foreign-currency inflows and private consumption.
As of end-August this year, total remittances sent home by Filipino migrant workers hit $16.2 billion, 4.1 percent higher than the eight-month total last year.
Image credits: ed davad