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APEC 2016 Leaders ’ Declaration and Malaysian Engineering Services
By Lee Soo Leng
Malaysia as a trading nation has been active in the formation of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement ( TPPA ) over the past years . The TPP is a free trade initiative which involves the APEC economies of Australia , Brunei , Canada , Chile , Malaysia , Mexico , New Zealand , Peru , Singapore , the United States , Vietnam and Japan . However , with the recent turn of events , after President Donald Trump of the United States took office , the fate of TPPA remains uncertain .
Against this backdrop , the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ( APEC ) 2016 Leaders ’ Declaration on November 20 , 2016 in Lima , Peru is worth revisiting to understand its impact on the regional economy and in particular , the opportunities for the engineering fraternity .
APEC is a forum for 21 Pacific Rim member economies that promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region . APEC has long been at the forefront of reform efforts in the area of business facilitation .
In view of the TPPA uncertainty , Malaysian International Trade and Industry Minister who led the
Malaysian delegation to the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos , Switzerland , from Jan 17-20 , 2017 mentioned that Malaysia may look into the possibility of pursuing bilateral free trade agreements ( FTAs ) with TPP members . He further added that Malaysia has been a major beneficiary of foreign direct investment , which has contributed to the country ’ s exports given that a large number of foreign companies operating in Malaysia are 100 % export-oriented . The presence of foreign companies in exchange of know-how is crucial in developing their capabilities to allow them to be part of the global supply chain .
With the above scenario , it may be important to take a look at some of the salient points concluded at the recent APEC 2016 Leaders ’ Declaration on the direction of free trade , with particular focus on engineering services related areas .
The extract of the APEC 2016 Leaders ’ Declaration is as follows :
We , the Leaders of APEC , met in Lima under the theme of Quality Growth and Human Development to continue working on our common endeavour to support free and open trade
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