Ottawa (VNA) – The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum ismoving in a right direction with the commitment to globalisation and economicdevelopment through trade, Stewart Beck, President and CEO of the Asia-PacificFoundation of Canada told a Vietnam News Agency correspondent in Ottawa.  

Beck held thatthe the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Da Nang has two major results. One,the leaders recognised that Vietnam is becoming a major global playereconomically with great change compared to what it was in Vietnam 11 years ago.

The secondthing was the real commitment of the forum, as 20 of 21 APEC member economies,excepting the US, chose to open to the global trading system.

He stressedthat APEC has been in play for a number of years and there have been somesignificant movements on the facilitation of travels of the people in theAPEC’s economies.

A lot oftariffs have been lowered as a result of APEC, he noted, adding that it isreally maintaining that momentum, moving forward, moving toward and more opentrading system that basically provides the benefits to everybody from differenteconomic groups.

Regardingthings APEC should do in the future to foster and implement all important goalsbeing set by the summit and being set by the APEC member economies, Beck statedthat it needs to recognise that trading is changing with e-commerce.

There are newopportunities being created for small- and medium-sized enterprises, said Beck,adding that technology is not just about becoming selling on the e-commerceplatform, technology also help training staffs, finance.

“Financialtechnology which is changing, again, on how people trade and create economicdevelopment. So this is what I think APEC play a big role, and how do weidentify those new technologies, how do we guard over regulate and how we getright regulations to encourage the development and growth of SMEs”, he said.

The expert heldthat if APEC get the driver growth going forward in the global environment, it willincrease its importance as an organisation to help integrate the emergingeconomies into global system.

“It is abouthow APEC can deal with regulations, with the new technologies as I mentioned,it is about the facilitation of the movement of people and goods,” stated Beck.-VNA