Apec Business Advisory Council endorses Cebu Action Plan

Officials of the 21-member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meet in Cebu to discuss integration and modernization of financial markets in the region. Photo from APEC 2015 Media Operations Committee

CEBU CITY — The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council (Abac) has endorsed the Cebu Action Plan (CAP), a multi-year roadmap for reforms that aims to integrate and modernize the region’s financial market.

The Abac’s endorsement of the Philippine’s CAP will be presented during the Finance Ministers meeting here on Sept. 10-11.

“Finance ministers and private sector leaders should collaborate more closely to expand funding for micro and small enterprises and infrastructure, increase resilience of enterprises and communities, and accelerate capital market development,” said Hiroyuki Suzuki, chair of Abac’s Finance and Economics Working Group.

Finance industry experts joined officials from finance ministries and multilateral agencies earlier, who were convened in the Philippines, to identify initiatives under the CAP.

Following their series of discussions, Apec officials have identified concrete programs to expand small and medium enterprises, provide access to finance, promote financial inclusion, and improve the depth and liquidity of capital markets.

The officials also agreed to launch initiatives to develop the pension and insurance industries, increase private sector investment in infrastructure, and facilitate disaster risk financing.

Abac has also expressed the intention of the private sectors in actively collaborating with these initiatives under the CAP.

“The private sector is supporting the establishment of a network of experts from the financial industry, multilateral institutions and government to build credit information systems allowing more owners of small businesses to use their transaction records in obtaining loans,” Abac said in a statement.

Abac said the private sector is also willing to “help improve legal frameworks to enable SMEs’ (small and medium enterprises) wider use of movable assets as collateral.”

Under the CAP, holding public-private dialogues is also envisioned to help officials “design infrastructure projects that can attract private lenders and investors.” JE