APEC Affirms Role and Importance of Regulatory Reform in 2012

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum recently affirmed that "advancing regulatory cooperation and convergence" is a priority for the organization in the new year.

In the 3 January, 2012 posting, APEC staff frequently reference their November, 2011 "Honolulu Declaration", which calls for increased economic integration, regulatory reform, and regulatory cooperation. Specifically, APEC hopes to strengthen food safety systems and facilitate trade, prevent technical barriers to trade, and advance existing anti-corruption and open government initiatives.

APEC hopes to accomplish these goals by "strengthening implementation of good regulatory practices" through the development of unified regulatory agendas, establishing principles to guide good regulatory governance, and review existing regulations to gauge-and if needed, improve-effectiveness.

The organization is also advancing the use of APEC-OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) Checklists, which member countries can use as a means to assess their country's regulatory quality and competitiveness. APEC hopes that this will lead to a "better alignment of standards across all economies in the Asia-Pacific region."

The forum of 21 member economies includes the United States, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Canada, and Mexico.

• (APEC - Stepping up regulatory cooperation for sustainable economic growth)
• (APEC - Honolulu Declaration)
• (APEC - Strengthening Implementation of Good Regulatory Practices)
• (APEC - Annex F - APEC regulatory cooperation plan)