WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/L/778 
16 November 2009 
 (09-5686) 
 Original:   English 
  
SEVENTEENTH APEC ECONOMIC LEADERS' MEETING 
Singapore 
14 - 15 November 2009  
 
Communication from Singapore
 
 
 
 The following communication, dated 16 N ovember 2009, has been received from the 
Delegation of Singapore with the request that it be circulated to Members.  
_______________ 
 
 
"Sustaining Growth, Connecting the Region" 
 
 We, the Leaders of APEC, gathered in Singapor e and marked twenty years of cooperation in 
promoting economic growth and prosperity for our pe ople.  In line with new trends and emerging 
challenges, our agenda has grown in breadth, dept h, and complexity.  But our common goal remains 
the same - to support growth and prosperity in th e Asia-Pacific region, through free and open trade 
and investment, as embedded in the Bogor Goals.   A year ago, as the world descended into an economic crisis unprecedented in severity since 
the Great Depression, we resolved that we would ai m to overcome the crisis within eighteen months. 
Today, our robust policy responses have helped to set  the stage for recovery.  But economic recovery 
is not yet on a solid footing.  Our commitments to reject protectionism and keep our markets open and 
free have enabled trade to be part of the soluti on rather than the problem.  We will maintain our 
economic stimulus policies until a durable ec onomic recovery has clearly taken hold.  
 
 We will work together to strengthen the mome ntum towards strong, sustainable and balanced 
global economic growth, as set out at the recent G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh.   Looking beyond supporting the recovery, we rec ognise the necessity to develop a new growth 
paradigm for the changed post-crisis landscape, a nd an expanded trade and investment agenda that 
will strengthen regional economic integration (REI) in the Asia-Pacific region.  We cannot go back to 
"growth as usual".  We will put in place next year  a comprehensive long-term growth strategy that 
supports more balanced growth within and across economies, achieves greater inclusiveness in our 
societies, sustains our environment, and which seek s to raise our growth potential through innovation 
and a knowledge-based economy. 
 
Supporting Balanced Growth 
 
 We support the goals of the G-20 Framework fo r Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth.  
We join in their commitment to:  
• Work together to ensure that our macroec onomic, regulatory and structural policies are 
collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced trajectories of growth;  WT/L/778 
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• Promote current account sustainability and open  trade and investment to advance global 
prosperity and growth sustainability;  
 
• Undertake macro prudential and regulatory polic ies to help prevent credit and asset price 
cycles from becoming forces of destabilisation; and  
 
• Promote development and poverty reduction as part  of the rebalancing of global growth.  
  We look forward to a progress report from Finance Ministers next year on their efforts to achieve stronger, more balanced and sust ained growth in the Asia-Pacific region. 
  Structural reform will be critical to stre ngthening long-term potential output growth and 
narrowing the development gap be tween economies, by improving economic flexibility, fostering 
private demand, and developing financial markets.  We agree to reenergise APEC's work on structural 
reform, building on the Leaders' Agenda to Implement Structural Reform towards 2010 (LAISR 2010).   
 We will leverage APEC's traditional strengths  of voluntary cooperation, capacity building, 
sharing of best practices, and working with the private sector, to implement necessary reforms in 
infrastructure development, agriculture/food manage ment, social security, education and workforce 
training, and regulatory frameworks.  We will work with the International Financial Institutions and 
Multilateral Development Banks to facilitate these e fforts.  Given APEC's diversity, these reforms 
must take into account individual economies' stage of development, demographic trends, factor and 
institutional endowments, and comparative advantages.  
Fostering Inclusive Growth 
 
 We resolve to ensure that future economic gr owth is more inclusive, to broaden access to 
opportunities created by growth and to spread the bene fits of growth more widely.  This will enable 
our economies to better seize the opportunities created by globalisation and to respond to its challenges.  Inclusive growth will strengthen the consensus for free and open trade and investment. 
  APEC's inclusive growth agenda will build on ongoing efforts on structural reform under 
LAISR 2010 and will be driven by two key thrusts.  First, we will undertake structural adjustments 
that will enhance opportunities for all segments of our societies to benefit from growth.  Emphasis 
will be placed on the following specific areas:  
• We will support and develop our small and medium enterprises  (SMEs), which account for 
more than 90 percent of all businesses in the APEC region and employ between 50 and 
80 percent of the workforce.  We will assist SMEs to gain better access to global markets, 
technology and finance as well as to improve  their crisis management capabilities.  
 
• We will put job creation at the heart of our economic strategy and enhance cooperation to 
address the social implications of globalisati on.  We will facilitate the retraining, skills 
upgrading and mobility of our workers so that they can secure jobs, especially in new and 
growing industries.  
 
• We will focus on enhancing women's  access to education, training, financing, technology, and 
infrastructure, to maximise their economic oppor tunities.  We welcome continued outreach to 
women entrepreneurs to grow the positive multiplier effect that women's economic 
engagement can have on productiv ity and sustained growth.   WT/L/778 
 Page 3 
 
 
   
 Second, we will strengthen social resilienc e to help individuals overcome short-term 
difficulties while providing the incentive for long-term  effort, with a focus on the most vulnerable in 
our economies.  
• We will improve outcomes in education and sk ills-training to enhan ce long-term economic 
security.  
 
• We will consider income supplements or earned income tax credits that  encourage work and 
enterprise.  
 
• We will design social safety nets that provide  short-term economic security but avoid long-
term dependency.  
 
 We instruct our Ministers and officials to furt her advance APEC's inclusive growth agenda in 
2010, and develop a multi-year programme to bu ild capacity for structural reforms and SME 
development, employment creation, and the development of social safety nets. 
 Promoting Sustainable Growth 
 
 We will ensure that economic growth in our region is consistent with sustainable 
development. Anthropogenic climate change is one of  the biggest global challenges.  It will impact 
each of our economies.  We welcome the Declaration of the Leaders of the Major Economies Forum 
on Energy and Climate in L'Aquila and the Lead ers' Statement at the G-20 Pittsburgh Summit, and 
reaffirm our commitment to tackle the threat of  climate change and work towards an ambitious 
outcome in Copenhagen, within the objective, provisions and principles of the United Nations 
Framework Convention on Climat e Change (UNFCCC).  Global action to reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions will need to be accompanied by measur es, including financial assistance and technology 
transfer to developing economies for their adapta tion to the adverse impact of climate change. 
 
 We recall our Declaration on Climate Change, Energy Security and Clean Development in 
Sydney in 2007, which set out an APEC-wide aspirati onal target of reducing energy intensity by at 
least 25 percent by 2030.  We applaud the effort s made by individual APEC economies that have 
unilaterally undertaken measures to reduce emission s.  Sustainable forest management plays an 
important role in mitigating global emissions.  We  will enhance work on meeting the aspirational goal 
in the Sydney Declaration of increasing forest cover in the region by at least 20 million hectares of all types of forests by 2020.  We support efforts in  the UNFCCC negotiations to agree on actions to 
reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degr adation (REDD) in developing economies.  We 
recognise the role of the oceans in mitigating climat e change, and the impact of climate change on 
oceans and coastal areas, and welcome the Manado Ocean Declaration.  
 
 Responding to climate change through transition to green econom ies also offers opportunities. 
We will ensure that efforts to address climate ch ange are consistent with  our international trade 
obligations.  A key thrust in APEC's sustainable growth agenda is the APEC Environmental Goods 
and Services (EGS) Work Programme, under which we will develop and implemen t a set of concrete 
actions to support sustainable growth in the re gion, advance work to increase utilisation and 
dissemination of EGS, reduce existing barriers and refrain from introducing new barriers to trade and 
investment in EGS, and enhance capabilities of economies to develop their EGS sectors.  We also commit to rationalise and phase out over the medium  term fossil fuel subsidies that encourage 
wasteful consumption, while recognising the impor tance of providing tho se in need with essential 
energy services.  We will review progress on this at  our meeting in 2010.  We will also take steps to WT/L/778 
Page 4  
 
  facilitate the diffusion of climate-friendly technol ogies, including through economic and technical 
cooperation (ECOTECH) and capacity building activities.   We will advance work on sharing best practices in  energy efficiency with a view to deploying 
cleaner and more efficient technologies, and we lcome the implementation of the voluntary APEC 
Peer Review on Energy Efficiency.  We recognise th e role of renewable energy in reducing emissions 
and encourage its development in the APEC region .  We will encourage publication on a regular 
basis, timely, accurate, and complete data on oil prod uction, consumption, refi ning and stock levels as 
appropriate.  Resisting Protectionism 
 
 We firmly reject all forms of protectionism  and reaffirm our commitment to keep markets 
open and refrain from raising new barriers to investme nt or to trade in goods and services, and instruct 
our Ministers to continue to regularly review our adherence to these commitments.  These efforts 
reinforce the WTO's own monitoring mechanism, a nd act as another bulwark against protectionist 
pressures by ensuring transparency in the measures taken in response to the crisis. 
 
Supporting the Multilateral Trading System 
 
 We strongly reaffirm that the most effective means of dealing with protectionist pressures and 
delivering a global stimulus package to sustain and s ecure our recovery is an ambitious and balanced 
conclusion to the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) in 2010, based on the progress achieved to-date, 
including with regard to modalities.  It is im portant that the high-level political commitment to 
concluding the Doha Round transl ates into substantive progress in the negotiations.  We are ready to 
exercise pragmatism and all possible flexibility and u tilise all possible avenues in order to accelerate 
the pace of negotiations to secure convergence on a fina l package.  We instruct our Ministers to work 
closely on what needs to be done to bring the DDA to a successful conclusion and to assess the 
situation no later than in early 2010.   
Accelerating Regional Economic Integration 
  We reaffirm our commitment to the Bogor Goal s of free and open trade and investment.  We 
direct Ministers and officials to report to us next year with a meaningful assessment of the industrialised APEC economies' achi evement of the Bogor Goals.  
  We will continue to explore building blocks towards a possible Free Trade Area of the Asia 
Pacific (FTAAP) in the future.  An analytical st udy by officials shows that there are significant 
economic benefits from an FTAAP, as well as the cha llenges of establishing such an agreement.  We 
look forward to the progress update from Ministers and officials next year on the outcomes of the exploration of a range of possible pathways to achieve FTAAP.   We will accelerate our work to strengthen RE I in the Asia-Pacific, taking a comprehensive 
approach that focuses our work on trade libera lisation "at the border"; improving the business 
environment "behind the border"; and enhancing supply chain connectivity "across the border".   
• We instruct officials to intensify our work  on initiatives to promot e greater convergences 
among economies in key areas of APEC's REI agenda, including in services, the digital economy, investment, trade facilitation, rules of  origin and standards/technical barriers to 
trade.  
  WT/L/778 
 Page 5 
 
 
  • We welcome the participation of Australia, Ca nada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, 
and the United States in a pathfinder initiativ e under which economies will agree to practice 
self-certification of origin with FTA partners.  This initiative will facilitate trade by cutting 
the certification procedure down to a single step and reducing processing time to just one day.  
 
• We endorse the APEC Principles for Cross-Border  Trade in Services and the APEC Services 
Action Plan, which together will provide a f oundation for APEC's future work to promote 
services trade and build greater convergences among APEC economies in their treatment of services. 
 
• We aspire to achieve an APEC-wide improvement  of 25 percent in five key areas of doing 
business by 2015: Starting a Business, Getting Credit, Enforcing Contracts, Trading Across Borders and Dealing with Permits, and a 5 per cent improvement by 2011.  We welcome the 
preparation of capacity building work programmes by champion economies - United States; 
New Zealand; Japan; Korea; Hong Kong, Chin a; and Singapore - and encourage continuous 
and concerted efforts through the Ease of Doi ng Business Action Plan to make it cheaper, 
faster and easier to do business in the Asia-Pacific.  
 
• We look forward to the progress stock-take in implementing the LAISR forward work 
programme in 2010, and instruct our Ministers and officials to strategise the next phase of the LAISR, including in the context of supporting our new growth strategies.  
 
• We look towards the successful conclusion of APEC's second Trade Facilitation Action Plan 
in 2010, and are pleased to note that APEC as a whole is on track to reduce trade transaction 
costs by an additional 5 percent by 2010.  
 
• We will develop common approaches towards well-functioning public-private partnership 
(PPP) markets.  We encourage officials to e xplore the feasibility of utilising PPPs for the 
upgrading of transport infrastructure that c ontributes to the enhancement of supply chain 
connectivity in the region.  
 
• We welcome the Supply Chain Connectivity Framework, which has identified eight 
chokepoints in regional supply ch ains and suggested actions to  address these chokepoints.  
We welcome the commitment from Transport Ministers to achieve greater seamlessness in our multi-modal transport networks and call for o fficials to continue cohesive efforts towards 
improving supply chain connectivity.  
 
• We welcome the work undertaken in identifyi ng performance indicators for the Investment 
Facilitation Action Plan (IFAP) and look forward to the implementation of the IFAP next 
year.  
 
• We reaffirm our commitment to strengthen th e protection and enforcement of intellectual 
property (IP) rights and reiterated the importanc e of comprehensive and balanced intellectual 
property (IP) systems that provide for and prot ect the incentives that encourage creation and 
innovation and provide the tools for successful management and exploitation of IP rights.  We 
will continue to promote greater collaboration among our IP rights experts, APEC Business 
Advisory Council (ABAC), and enforcement authorities across the APEC region and recognise the importance of capacity building.  We welcome the progress made by economies in implementing the APEC Anti-Counterfeiting a nd Piracy Initiative as well as cooperation to 
improve patent systems in the region, and lo ok forward to further progress next year.  
 WT/L/778 
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  • We encourage ongoing efforts towards using ICT to address socio-economic issues and 
realising APEC's goal of achieving universal a ccess to broadband in all member economies 
by 2015.  
 
• We support the outcomes and recommendations of the APEC Trade Recovery Programme 
Pilot Exercise.  We reaffirm the importance for our economies to implement initiatives, such 
as communications mechanisms and other appro aches to trade recovery, to build trusted 
relationships and to recognise one anothe r's Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) 
programmes in alignment with the World Cust oms Organization (WCO) SAFE Framework of 
Standards.  
 
Strengthening Economic and Technical Cooperation 
 
 Building capacity for reforms aimed at facilita ting inclusive growth and REI remains a key 
priority for APEC.  We reaffirm our commitment to  the Manila Framework, which serves as the basis 
for the implementation of the ECOTECH activiti es outlined in the Osaka Action Agenda.  We 
recognise that capacity building needs evolve as prior ities shift to meet new challenges.  Therefore, 
we welcome ongoing efforts to develop a more st rategic, goal-oriented and multi-year approach 
toward capacity building, and to strengthen the prio ritisation and effective implementation of capacity 
building activities across APEC fora.  We welc ome the establishment of the US$10 million China 
APEC Cooperation Fund which aims to facilita te and promote APEC ECOTECH cooperation.  
 
Enhancing Human Security 
 
 We express our deepest condolences for the lo ss of life and destruction caused by the 
devastating typhoons that hit China, Japan, the Ph ilippines, Chinese Taipei and Viet Nam, and the 
earthquakes and the recent terrorist attacks in Indon esia.  We reaffirm the importance of enhancing 
human security and reducing the threat of disrup tions to business and trade in sustaining economic 
growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.   We recognise the importance of building capacity 
to counter terrorism and welcome APEC's work in  areas such as trade security, aviation security, 
anti-terrorist protection of energy infrastructure,  countering terrorism financing, fighting cyber-
terrorism, protecting the food supply against terro rist contamination and emergency preparedness. 
 
 Responding to food security challenges in the region is a major priority for APEC. Food 
security, including access to reliable sources of nutriti ous, safe and affordable food, remains a concern 
for many in the Asia-Pacific region and around the wo rld.  We encourage continued cooperation with 
the private sector, academia, and civil society to address food security and safe food supply 
challenges, including by promoting sustainable ag ricultural production and rural development, and 
instruct officials to undertake capacity building proj ects and other practical initiatives to address food 
security, and report back to us next year on their progress.  We support the L'Aquila Joint Statement 
on Global Food Security.   We welcome the sharing of experiences in d ealing with the double global impact of the 
economic crisis and the Influenza Pandemic (H1N1) in 2009.  We re affirm our commitment to build 
regional capacity for avian and other potential human influenza pandemics and emerging and re-
emerging infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis.  We will strengthen our health 
systems and cooperate to prevent and contro l emerging infectious diseases in the world. 
 
Fighting Corruption, Improving Governance and Transparency 
  Good governance, institutional in tegrity, and transparency in both the public and private 
sectors have a critical impact on the smooth flow of  trade and economic activities and help to mitigate  WT/L/778 
 Page 7 
 
 
  crime and corruption.  We recognise the mutually  reinforcing relationship between good governance 
measures and anti-corruption actions.  We welcome the efforts of member economies and ABAC in 
these areas and encourage public-private partnerships  to further APEC efforts to enhance governance, 
institutional integrity and combat corruption.  
 We welcome the efforts of ABAC and the business community to enhance governance and 
encourage economies to work through public-private pa rtnership to further APEC efforts in this area.  
  We note the importance of international coopera tion in combating and dismantling the threat 
of cross-border criminal networks and its linkag es with corruption nodes.  We encourage member 
economies, where applicable, to ratify the UN Convention against Corruption and UN Convention 
against Transnational Organised Crime and take  measures to implement their provisions, in 
accordance with economies'  legal frameworks. 
 
Strengthening APEC 
 
 A revitalised APEC is crucial to meet the cha llenges of sustaining recovery and to deal with 
the region's 21st century economic challenges.  To do so, APEC economies must forge a partnership 
of common interests to produce strong, balanced and sustainable growth.  The appointment of the Secretariat's first Executive Director for a fixed te rm is an important first step to strengthen the 
capacity of the APEC Secretariat to meet the growing demands of member economies and other key 
stakeholders.  We direct our Ministers and offici als to accelerate efforts to develop more responsive 
and effective mechanisms to en sure that APEC remains the premier forum for regional economic 
cooperation.  
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