U.S. 2024 APEC Outcomes

APEC Economic Leaders met November 15-16 in Lima, under Peru's theme of "Empower. Include. Grow." to advance APEC priorities on trade and investment, digitalization and innovation, and sustainable and inclusive growth. The United States worked with Peru and APEC partners in 2024 to build on commitments made in previous years, including U.S. APEC host year outcomes in the 2023 APEC Leaders' Golden Gate Declaration, to enhance economic cooperation, promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth, and address regional challenges. In addition to President Biden's participation in the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai also participated in the APEC Ministerial Meeting on November 14. APEC Economic Leaders' Week also included the APEC CEO Summit, which convened APEC leaders and high-ranking officials, senior private sector executive officers and strategic decision-makers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders to focus on global opportunities and challenges that are shaping economic, environmental, and societal trends in the region.

Leaders endorsed the Machu Picchu Declaration, a consensus declaration to advance efforts to achieve APEC economies' ambitious economic growth objectives. Leaders also endorsed the Lima Roadmap to Promote the Transition to the Formal and Global Economies (2025-2040) and Ichma Statement on A New Look at the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific Agenda. The Declaration was issued with a companion Chair's Statement, which reflected the Leaders' discussion on Russia's aggression in Ukraine and other geopolitical issues. Secretary Blinken and U.S. Trade Representative Tai joined their counterparts in issuing a consensus joint ministerial statement. A companion Chair's Statement was also issued alongside the Statement. We look forward to continuing to advance many of these shared priorities when the Republic of Korea hosts APEC in 2025.

WHY WE ENGAGE IN APEC

The 21 APEC member economies are home to 3 billion people - nearly 40 percent of the world's population - and represent almost half of global trade and more than 60 percent of the world's GDP. Fellow APEC members are the destination for roughly 60 percent of U.S. goods exports, and seven of the top 10 overall trading partners for the United States are APEC members. Building on our 2023 APEC host year, the United States continued to deepen our economic ties with key regional partners and advance a more interconnected, innovative, and inclusive economic agenda for the region in 2024.

Private sector partners across all APEC economies play a critical role in APEC's goal of driving sustainable, inclusive, and dynamic economic growth throughout the region. APEC Economic Leaders' Week, which convened over 5,000 senior government officials and global business leaders, featured extensive and substantial public-private collaboration, including the APEC CEO Summit, the APEC Sustainable Future Forum, and other stakeholder engagement activities.

KEY OUTCOMES

This year, the United States secured significant outcomes centered around cementing our 2023 host year priorities and advancing Peru's 2024 priorities of sustainability and inclusion, digital innovation, and resilient and inclusive growth.

SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH

The United States built on previous efforts to promote sustainability, including through climate and clean energy initiatives and addressing marine debris, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU), and illegal logging. Clean energy technologies are an important export and investment opportunity for U.S. companies, and transparent, market-based policies and energy sector governance reforms will open markets for U.S. energy and energy-related goods and services. The United States led efforts to advance equitable clean energy transitions, promote food security through sustainable agri-food systems, and protect forest biodiversity. This year, the United States further advanced sustainable economic growth in the region by:

• Launching the Just Energy Transition Initiative (JETI), proposed by APEC Energy Ministers and APEC Ministers in 2023, which will promote efforts to advance energy transitions in the APEC region that engage workers, communities, and private sector companies and investors in an equitable and inclusive way, including for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), women, Indigenous Peoples, and persons with disabilities. JETI encompasses the following five thematic areas: just energy transition and energy security; fossil fuel power plants and just energy transition; just energy transition for gender equality, well-being, and inclusive sustainable development; rural electrification and energy access; technical solutions for just energy transition.

• Concluding a U.S.-led, multiyear Financing a Just Energy Transition workstream which highlighted available policy tools for an inclusive and holistic energy transition that aligns with economies' net-zero/carbon neutrality targets.

• Endorsing the Trujillo Principles for Preventing and Reducing Food Loss and Waste at the 2024 Food Security Ministerial, highlighting the United States' continued leadership from the 2023 Principles for Achieving Food Security Through Sustainable Agri-food Systems. These principles target food loss and waste while enhancing supply chain resiliency, spurring infrastructure investments, and fostering multi-sectoral engagement.

• Showcasing the economic benefits of aligning agricultural regulatory processes between trading partners through the Policy Approaches Document for Regulatory Cooperation on Agricultural Biotechnology and website under the APEC High-Level Policy Dialogue on Agricultural Biotechnology (HLPDAB).

• Securing endorsement of the Seattle Framework on https://www.state.gov/outcomes-of-the-u-s-hosted-2023-apec-women-and-the-economy-forum/Gender Equality and Climate Change, a pivotal initiative developed during the U.S. host year to equip policymakers with different strategies to tackle the disproportionate impacts of environmental challenges - including climate change, extreme weather, and natural disasters - on women and girls of diverse backgrounds and those living in remote and rural areas.

• Implementing the Roadmap on Combatting Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and the Roadmap on Marine Debris, including by providing support to the APEC Marine Debris Management and Innovation Sub-Fund.

• Sharing and promoting best practices in combatting illegal logging and associated trade to protect forest biodiversity and encourage trade in legally harvested timber and forest products.

• Endorsing an updated reference version of the 2012 APEC Environmental Goods List in modern nomenclature (HS2022) to help APEC traders and economies better understand the current scope of the original list.

• Supporting circular economy approaches through bolstering APEC economies' capacity for trade facilitation of remanufactured consumer electronic goods, which will promote material and energy savings in the production process and reduce solid waste.

• Promoting compostable bioplastics as a feasible solution to limit and manage waste and marine litter, and publishing a promoting compostable bioplastics study to guide APEC economies' policy efforts in the trade and investment of compostable bioplastics products.

• Advancing efforts to apply emerging technologies for greenhouse gas emissions measurement to increase transparency, data quality, and interoperability of emission reporting by APEC members, including through a study on GHG monitoring objectives and technologies.

• Promoting coastal resilience through targeted policy initiatives and a needs assessment and gap analysis to inform innovative and tailored solutions at the economy-level and regional-level.

• Advancing a sustainable electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle ecosystem by training subject-matter experts on best practices in advanced vehicle standards, battery second use, and skills development programs.

DIGITAL ECONOMY

The United States has continued to advance a Digital Pacific Agenda, working with APEC economies to shape the rules, practices, and standards that govern the digital economy, expand secure digital access for consumers and businesses, and support the responsible design, development, and deployment of emerging digital technologies, including artificial intelligence. In 2024, we continued to advance work with economies on digital upskilling and reskilling, and foster regulatory environments conducive to maximizing the cross-border flow of data while ensuring data protection. In 2024, the United States promoted these efforts by:

• Preparing economies' workforces with the skills that are required to support the ongoing transformation to cloud computing services through advancing work on workforce skills development aligned with the APEC Cloud Transformation Recommendations.

• Advancing adoption of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite services in the APEC region through work on the regulatory landscape, licensing requirements, and best practices for harnessing the connectivity potential of new LEO services.

• Fostering public-private collaboration to enable MSMEs to thrive in the global economy, including across the omni-channel environment, allowing seamless consumer experience across all channels, including in store, mobile, and online.

• Strengthening the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) Forum by welcoming the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Mauritius, and Bermuda as Associates. The Global CBPR Forum was established by participating economies in the APEC CBPR System, to promote the free flow of data while ensuring effective data protection and privacy standards worldwide.

• Advancing public-private collaboration in digital health and telehealth by establishing shared principles to guide future telehealth modalities and other digital health tools throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

• Continuing U.S. leadership in implementing the Digital Trade Policy Dialogue workstream, focused on measuring the impact of responsible artificial intelligence, addressing digital trade and trust, and expanding digital inclusion through digital trade.

• Enhancing opportunities in the digital economy for consumers and businesses, including MSMEs by generating dialogue on upgrading the APEC Pathfinder on Building Blocks for Facilitating Digital Trade to address modern challenges.

ECONOMIC INCLUSION

The United States has continued to enhance APEC's capacity to address barriers that restrict people of the APEC region from fully participating in and benefiting from global trade with a focus on MSMEs, women, and underrepresented groups. Economic empowerment and gender equity remained a central priority for the United States in 2024, including by:

• Implementing the San Francisco Principles on Integrating Inclusivity and Sustainability into Trade and Investment Policy, including through strengthening data collection and analysis to understand the distributional effects of trade and through increasing understanding how trade agreements in the APEC region incorporate inclusionary elements as examples for other economies, to help economies better ensure the benefits of trade and investment extend to all people.

• Supporting the 2023 Detroit Principles and Recommendations and continuing to promote inclusion and equality in education, training and employment, highlighting the important role of social dialogue in economic policymaking.

• Developing the Arequipa Goals, building on the 2023 Detroit Principles, in order to improve education, training, and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities by 2030.

• Establishing the Friends of the Chair on Promoting Disability Policies to develop and share subject matter expertise across APEC, empowering APEC members to enable persons with disabilities to realize their full potential in contributing to regional economic growth.

• Empowering Women in E-Commerce by spearheading initiatives to tackle APEC-wide and economy-specific challenges for women entrepreneurs in e-commerce. Through targeted research and workshops, the United States enhanced digital literacy, financial access, and online safety for women entrepreneurs.

• Advancing work to integrate women-owned businesses into global value chains, fostering supply chain resilience and inclusive growth in the region.

• Advancing APEC economies' understanding and utilization of Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Indigenous Peoples' engagement in STEM through the active participation of U.S. Science Envoy Dr. Kyle Whyte, who is working at the Nexus of Environmental Science and Indigenous Knowledge. Dr. Whyte's participation in the Peru-led Traditional Knowledge Symposium generated new approaches to inclusion and utilization of TK, as well as advanced U.S. leadership of scientific and research values.

• Securing endorsement of the U.S.-led APEC Women in STEM Principles and Action Monitoring Framework as a key initiative to leverage gender-disaggregated data and drive progress on the 2019 APEC Women in STEM Principles and Actions, which recognizes that women are underrepresented in STEM and their participation is vital in order to fully reach scientific, economic, and social potential.

• Building upon previous APEC commitments, including the U.S. APEC host year's joint meeting of the High-Level Policy Dialogue on Women and the Economy and SME Ministers, Peru held the first ever APEC Joint Ministers Responsible for Trade and Ministers Responsible for Women meeting to demonstrate senior-level support for enhancing women's participation and leadership in regional and global trade.

ECONOMIC RESILIENCE

In 2024, the United States continued to promote economic resilience by fostering supply chain resilience, promoting trade and investment facilitation, advancing regulatory and structural reform, and strengthening health systems. We also worked with economies to implement the APEC Good Regulatory Practices Blueprint, lead the drafting of the annual APEC Economic Policy Report, and continue to break down barriers to doing business. Additional efforts included:

• Supporting robust food-safety systems' supply chain efficiency and trade facilitation through more harmonized digitalization of import/export certificates for animal products (eCert) and how eCert benefits both regulators and industry in eliminating unnecessary paper processes, expediting certification, and enhancing security.

• Fostering innovative approaches to ongoing supply chain challenges through the APEC Alliance for Supply Chain Connectivity (A2C2), which brings together regional stakeholders to discuss best practices and potential solutions tailored to fostering supply chain resilience the Asia-Pacific region.

• Expanding the APEC Index for Measuring the Regulatory Environment of Services Trade to cover more economies and sectors, while convening a multi-stakeholder workshop and publishing a study on developing technical standards for services, providing crucial data and best practices for policymakers, academics, and industry leaders.

• Institutionalizing and elevating the importance of gender equality through co-sponsoring the APEC Ministers-endorsed Gender and Structural Reform Principles. The principles highlight the key areas that structural reform can advance women's economic empowerment through removing barriers to educational systems and the world of work, including leadership and decision-making positions that disproportionally affect women and girls.

• Fostering international cooperation and the development of standards that support innovation and economic growth in critical tech sectors, including promoting applications of emerging technologies, such as AI, blockchain, and cloud computing, in digitalization and international regulatory cooperation.

• Securing endorsement of the Regulatory Harmonization Steering Committee to continue APEC's critical work on regulatory cooperation and convergence in efforts to ensure access to safe, effective, and quality-assured medical products.

• Promoting intellectual property as a means to achieve inclusive growth, particularly by fostering a dialogue on various tools for implementing efficient patent examination processes and strengthening copyright protection for U.S. creators in foreign markets by leading discussion on effective practices for enforcement against illegal streaming.

• Advancing the Framework for APEC Anti-Corruption Thematic Areas for 2023-2026, a U.S.-led initiative which recognizes that combating corruption requires a collective approach and strategic direction with high-level support and works to further prevent and combat corruption throughout the region.

• Supporting economy-level efforts to advance implementation of good regulatory practices for public consultation and regulatory impact analyses in alignment with the APEC Good Regulatory Practices Blueprint.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE COLLABORATION AND STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

Stakeholders, including private sector partners, across APEC economies play a critical role in APEC's goal of driving sustainable, inclusive, and dynamic economic growth throughout the region. Tangible ways the U.S. Government worked with stakeholders in 2024 included:

• Leading the 11th annual APEC Business Ethics for SMEs Forum, focusing on fortifying multistakeholder collective action through robust consensus frameworks, spotlighting government strategies to encourage ethical business practices, including enterprise integrity in public procurement, and championing women's leadership in ethics and compliance.

• Establishing best practices for supporting caregivers, most of whom are women, through the Embracing Carers Toolkit. The toolkit, developed by the public and private sector, offers policy examples, case studies, and implementation steps to help all stakeholders support caregivers through incorporating the ILO 5R Framework for Decent Care Work.

• Engaging with 30 stakeholder groups, consisting of business associations, think tanks, universities, and other stakeholders, to discuss the importance of APEC, the outcomes of the Senior Officials' Meetings from Peru's host year, and U.S. priorities for the upcoming Republic of Korea 2025 host year. Domestic engagement enables the team to receive invaluable feedback from our stakeholders that help formulate policy within APEC.

• Collaborating with Embassy Lima and the U.S. APEC Team to highlight the work of the Academy of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE). Engagements with AWE consisted of vendor booths selling goods and services during the various SOM clusters; the annual AWE Fair featuring over 30 different women-owned businesses around Peru during SOM2; and various roundtables discussing women in leadership and women SMEs.

• Sponsoring the "Hackathon Amazonia Impacta" during APEC Economic Leaders' week, which is focused on developing innovative and practical technological solutions to enhance the integration of Indigenous women from the Peruvian Amazon into both local and global markets. The hackathon brought together university students from Loreto, Ucayali, San Mation, Madre de Dios, and Amazonas with students from Lima.

• Supporting NCAPEC's Sustainable Future Forum (SFF) and Annual Luncheon on November 13 in Lima prior to the APEC CEO Summit. The event brought together NCAPEC members, U.S. government and other APEC economies senior officials, and private sector representatives to discuss strategies for challenges facing the region. The SFF convened local and regional stakeholders to share perspectives on advancing key sustainable growth objectives in the agribusiness and mining sectors.

SUPPORTING APEC AS AN INSTITUTION

In addition to the policy priorities the United States continued to invest in APEC as an institution, demonstrating our leadership in engaging multilateral fora and delivering a positive economic vision for the region.

• Concluding the U.S.-Support for Economic Growth in Asia (US-SEGA) program, a six-year foreign assistance program focused on APEC. Through US-SEGA, the United States conducted 102 workshops, trained 5,332 individuals, completed 31 studies that were accessed almost 38,000 times, implemented 12 bilateral technical assistance programs in 7 target economies, all leading to 14 APEC economies reporting that U.S. workshops contributed towards policy or practice changes in their home economy.

• Launching U.S. APEC-Resilient, Inclusive, and Sustainable Economies (U.S. APEC-RISE), a foreign assistance mechanism with an initial $4 million in Economic Support Funds that the United States plans to provide, working with Congress, to advance U.S. 2023 APEC host year priorities and fulfill policy commitments in the Golden Gate Declaration. U.S. APEC-RISE aims to improve the policy environment to promote sustainable economic growth and prosperity, improve regional economic cooperation, sound management of institutions, and good governance while also expanding markets for U.S. goods and services in the Asia-Pacific region.

• Chairing APEC's Budget and Management Committee to help APEC make the most informed budgetary and managements decisions that can continue to advance APEC as a modern and efficient institution.

• Participating in the APEC Executive Director (ED) Recruitment Committee, working to identify a well-qualified individual that will steer APEC for the next three years.

For further information, please contact the Office of Economic Policy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at [email protected].

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