The inaugural Malaysia National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation (MANCPEC) Roundtable on Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Post-2020 Agenda was held on Tuesday, 2 May 2017, at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Around 30 individuals representing government, businesses, business associations, think tanks and academia attended the Roundtable, with majority being MANCPEC members.

The main purpose of the Roundtable is to brainstorm ideas on APEC goals beyond year 2020 and look at relevant questions on the future of APEC. At the Roundtable, two distinguished speakers were Datin Che Mazni Che Wook, APEC Senior Official for Malaysia from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and Dato’ Muhamad Noor Yacob, Former APEC Executive Director. Dato’ N Vasudevan, Former APEC Senior Official for Malaysia and Dato’ Ramesh Kodammal, Member of ASEAN-BAC were the discussants at the Roundtable.

Datin Che Mazni highlighted three ways for APEC to move forward; 1) Continue with the Bogor Goals of achieving “free trade and investment” until 2020 2) Expand the Bogor Goals beyond 2020 such as to include digital economy and 3) Realise Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). Apart from addressing protectionist and anti-globalisation concerns, the participants also discussed the importance of fostering the participation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the regional and global market. Emerging issues such as factory reconfiguration, resulted from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, were also raised. Finally, in streamlining the efforts towards achieving APEC post-2020 goals, the issue of proliferation of fora must also be addressed.

Download program agenda