APEC forms group for development of services

MANILA, Philippines - Services organizations across the Asia Pacific have formed the region’s first services coalition after days of discussions at the APEC Structural Reform Ministerial Meeting (SRMM) in Cebu City.

Delegates decided to form the broad regional coalition focused on championing and aiding the development of the region’s services sector, said Geneva-based International Trade Centre (ITC) senior services advisor Jane Drake-Brockman in a briefing.

“The development of the services sector across the region is the critical link to efficiency to all other sectors,” she said.

Brockman said the coalition, the first-ever gathering of services organization all over the region, would write the new Service Cooperation Framework with an inclusive micro, small and medium (MSME) agenda.

It will be co-convened on May 2016 in Beijing by the services groups of Australia and the US, and assisted by the Philippine services sector group.

The SRMM regional meeting also led to the revival of the Philippine Services Coalition, headed by Peter Angelo V. Perfecto, the concurrent executive director of the Makati Business Club.

Aside from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), Perfecto said they have received commitments from the creative sector of Cebu and the Visayas, Philippine Technology Council, the United Architects of the Philippines and Baliwag University.

He said the liberalization of the country’s services sector was inevitable as witnessed by events in the logistics, telecommunications, financial and energy sectors.

“An efficient and competitive services sector will make manufacturing and agriculture sectors also look good,” he said, adding almost 30 percent of the agriculture sector’s productivity is actually services, not goods.

The sector accounts for two-thirds of the combined gross domestic product of APEC economies and almost 71 percent of global GDP. This sector includes telecommunications, e-commerce, transportation, finance and banking, engineering, construction, legal, healthcare and education services.

The services sector absorbs a significant share of the workforce.

In the Philippines, the sector account for 54 percent of total employment or around 21 million Filipinos. This is important at a time when APEC economies are facing an environment of slower global economic growth, slower potential growth, and relatively weak business investment.