On 11 March the World Health Organization made the assessment that the COVID-19 outbreak was a global pandemic. This virus has now spread across our entire region and the world. The impact on human life and economic activity has already been harsh and is likely to continue to be so. The World Health Organization has said that the response must be “a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach, built around a comprehensive strategy to prevent infections, save lives and minimize impact”. We have seen APEC member economies are strengthening cooperation and taking measures to combat COVID-19 and stabilize their economies. To contribute to regional cooperation on COVID-19 we have developed this webpage to share information and best practice on how our region is responding to the COVID-19 crisis.

Information posted here includes perspectives from our member committees on how their economies are responding to the crises, initiatives undertaken by our member committees, their host institutions and members to the crisis as well as expert opinions which reflect views from the submitting committees and do not necessarily represent those of the Co-Chairs or the Secretariat as a whole.

Last year’s State of the Region report concluded that “At a time when the economies are more interconnected than ever through digital technologies and facing common existential threats such as pandemics and more frequent and harsher natural disasters, the governance systems that facilitate coordinated responses need to be strengthened not weakened.” In this spirit we call on members of the PECC community to come together and leverage our expertise from our various fields and contribute in our way to finding solutions to this crisis and using the PECC as platform to learn from each other as we go through this troubled times together as one community.

*Special section on COVID-19 can be accessed here.