Region

APEC has promoted institutional, regulatory and policy reforms to encourage efficient functioning of markets and reduce barriers to regional trade since the early 2000s. A dynamic, thriving private sector is essential to the effective functioning of markets. However, a number of factors such as global pandemics have affected the private sector by, which have impacting private investment, job generation, and more. The private sector must become more dynamic and resilient to meet the region’s most pressing economic growth challenges. In this context, governments have a critical role to play in removing regulatory barriers and enacting policies that create a business environment that maximizes the benefits for businesses, entrepreneurs, workers, and society.

Eligibility and Fund Priorities

This project is eligible for funding under the General Project Account Fund. In line with the General Project Account Fund’s requirements, this project is compliant with the Guidebook on APEC Projects including the requirements on co-sponsorship and endorsement. In line with the GPA 2025 funding priorities, this project supports Peru’s Host Year priority of “trade and investment for inclusive and interconnected growth.” It also supports Korea’s priority of “Innovate” and specifically the focus on “Strengthening and Enhancing the Structural Reform.” This project will incentivize and support structural reform initiatives by taking stock of areas for particular attention and reform, setting collective targets, and encouraging measurable progress in key areas aligned with the Fourth EoDB Action Plan.

Capacity Building

The Ease of Doing Business work lends itself well to capacity building amongst APEC economies. Because of the variety of APEC’s member economies, sharing experience and providing capacity building assistance to developing APEC members can benefit the region as a whole, lifting APEC-wide performance.

This project seeks to build APEC members’ capacities through three distinct deliverables. The first is the deep dive report on a particular priority area from the Fourth EoDB Action Plan. The priority area will be selected based on and following a brief being developed by the U.S. in mid-2025 that will assess each of the five priority areas for the next phase of work. The proposed deep dive report under this project will take stock of where economies are in their progress toward the priority area (where data is available) and opportunities for further improvement. The report will strengthen APEC members’ knowledge of the priority area.

Second, the deep dive workshop will build the capacity of APEC members by not only understanding where they are, but helping to identify how to continue to improve performance in the selected priority area. More specifically, APEC economies will have an opportunity to discuss the priority area and what reforms have been made.

Through experience and information sharing, APEC economies can work together to move the needle and chart a path forward to continue to improve their progress in this priority area.

Third, the policy dialogue will provide a platform for APEC member participants to engage with subject matter experts and other economies on the broader set of priority areas. Subject matter experts will be integral to the transferring of technical insights and sharing of best practices that directly strengthen the skills, understanding, and knowledge of participants. Participants will be able to exchange information and experiences, hear about best practices, and determine where there is still work to be done, charting a path for future capacity building efforts.

To maximize capacity building outcomes, Project Overseers will disseminate the deep dive report to all members of the EC. In addition, Project Overseers seek to use APEC funding for travel and related costs to facilitate the participation of speakers and participants from the APEC travel-eligible economies in the deep dive workshop. This funding support will help ensure that representatives from all APEC economies have the opportunity to participate in the exchange of information and experiences, and to obtain knowledge and skills from the project.