APEC Commits to Customs Simplification, AEOs, Food Safety, Etc.

The following are highlights of these statements and documents:

Identify Customs Simplifications, Work on AEO Guidelines, Etc. by Nov 2011

To respond to the APEC Leaders’ commitment to achieving a 10% improvement in supply chain performance and taking into consideration individual economy circumstances, the trade ministers instructed their officials to continue to implement the APEC Supply-Chain Connectivity Framework Action Plan by 2015 and specifically to take the following actions by the November 2011 APEC leaders meeting:

Customs simplification, de minimis exemptions - identify ways to simplify customs procedures, and reduce costs for importers and exporters, including by developing a plan by November 2011, building on best practices in effect in each of their economies, to ensure wider implementation of commercially useful de minimis values, which exempt low-value importations from revenue collection;

Increase use of advance rulings, pre-arrival processing - increase the efficiency of the customs clearance and release process, including by improving and expanding the use of advance rulings and pre-arrival processing for shipments in APEC economies;

Complete AEO Guide - complete the APEC Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) Best Practices Guidelines Document, and develop a capacity building plan to assist with the development of AEO programs, especially for those economies that have begun or are interested in beginning their AEO’s implementation;

Improve regional logistics sub-provider capacity - enhance the capacity of local and regional logistics sub-providers in the region by helping improve their competitiveness, in order to further raise the quality of APEC economies’ logistics services and management; and

Guidelines on combating IPR infringement - develop practical guidelines that assist customs authorities in APEC economies in combating infringement of intellectual property rights through the identification of effective practices for intellectual property rights enforcement at the border.

Reduce Burden of Food Export Certificates, Promote Int’l Food Standards

Regarding food safety and their goal to better align requirements relating to food with international standards and best practices, APEC Ministers agreed to:

Reduce export certificate burdens -- work to reduce unnecessary requirements in official export certificates for agricultural products and seeking, where appropriate, to eliminate requirements that are not based on science and essential to ensuring food safety;

Promote int’l standards - consistent with WTO obligations, promote harmonization with international standards or the development and use of science-based standards on pesticide maximum residue limits in national programs to protect public health and reduce barriers to trade in the region;

Use risk-based incident management tools - develop and utilize risk-based incident management protocols to minimize the adverse impacts of food safety incidents on both public health and trade; and in the event of a food safety incident, to liaise more closely to enable risks to be accurately and appropriately communicated;

Improve lab capacity, etc. - improve laboratory testing capabilities and proficiency, and promote the development and use of internationally recognized measurement standards and reference materials, including through capacity-building and technical assistance, in order to improve overall food safety and facilitate the trade of food products among APEC economies.

Advance Regulatory Convergence Through Plans on Cooperation, Barriers

The leaders will also focus on steps that both individual economies and APEC as an organization can take by November 2011 to further their goals of advancing regulatory convergence and cooperation, including:

Plan for int’l regulatory cooperation - instructing their officials to identify concrete actions that may be taken by economies to strengthen implementation of good regulatory practices in the areas of internal coordination of rulemaking activity, regulatory impact assessment, and public consultation mechanism and to develop a draft APEC Regulatory Cooperation Plan for endorsement by leaders.

Prevent technical barriers to trade in emerging technologies - develop concrete recommendations for APEC economies’ action in order to prevent or eliminate technical barriers to trade related to standards and conformance solutions related to emerging technologies.

Promote Trade in Alternative Vehicles, Legal Timber, Remanufactures

The APEC Ministers also discussed a number of ways that they could advance their green growth objectives and instructed their officials to come up with ways to address the following issues by November 2011:

Streamline imports of demo alternative vehicles -- To increase trade in green vehicles and technologies, they will identify ways to streamline procedures and regulations related to the temporary importation of small numbers of non-salable advanced and alternative fueled demonstration motor vehicles.

Promote trade in legally harvested wood products - To address iIllegal logging and associated trade, they instructed officials to establish an experts group in order to promote trade in legally harvested forest products, combat illegal logging and associated trade, and build capacity. They also instructed officials to identify measures for economies to consider taking to address this problem.

Facilitate trade in remanufactured goods. To take further steps by November 2011 to facilitate trade in remanufactured products (which restores end-of-life goods to “like new” condition) and possible capacity-building in this area in order to improve understanding of issues associated with trade in these products.

Must Find Path Forward on Doha, Will Meet Again on Margins of OECD Talks

Regarding the future of the stalled WTO Doha talks, the ministers stated that they were directing their negotiators to urgently review all options, in light of the development dimension of the talks as mandated, and to work with all WTO Members to find a path forward. In doing so, they should build on the progress already achieved over the past decade in the talks and not "throw it all away." However, according to a statement by USTR Kirk, all ministers agreed that they cannot simply keep doing what they have been doing in the Doha talks. He also said that the statement by the APEC economies will inform the work of future meetings, including the Australian ministerial on the margins of the upcoming OECD meetings.

(See links below for information on SME development and the code of ethics to improve medical device exports.)

(See ITT’s Online Archives or 05/23/11, 05/20/11, 05/19/11 and 05/17/11 news, 11052301, 11052328, 11052046, 11052018, 11051930, 11051744 and 11051719, for previous BP summaries of other announcements from the Big Sky, Montana APEC meetings.)

APEC Trade Ministers press release and two joint statements, dated 05/20/11, available here, here and here.

USTR Kirk’s statement, dated 05/20/11, available here.

APEC Ministers’ joint statement on SMEs, dated 05/20/11, available here.

APEC Ministers’ statement on green innovation, dated 05/21/011, available here.

APEC Secretariat Executive Director's statement on energy security, dated 05/24/11, available here.

Commerce Department press release on APEC medical device export code of ethics, dated 05/14/11, available here.