The digital trade within the APEC region has been expanding rapidly, creating new cross-border trade opportunities for entrepreneurs, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), among others. Enabling cross-border flows of data while strengthening business and consumer trust in digital transactions, in addition to ensuring data protection and privacy, is essential to fostering trade and investment.

This project promote discussion of the data validation platforms , including those built on the Distributed Data Transfer Protocol (DDTP) which has been applied between China and Hong Kong, China for over 20 months, providing over 2,300 verification services for individuals and MSMEs.

The project seeks to host a workshop in 2026, inviting representatives from governments, technology companies, research institutions, and stakeholders across economies to develop economies’ understanding of and explore potential cooperation on data cross-border flows through cross-border data validation platforms.