Aotearoa Plan of Action

Last month APEC leaders endorsed the Aotearoa Plan of Action, which brings to life the APEC Putrajaya Vision 2040 that was adopted in 2020. You could think of the Putrajaya Vision as the destination and the Aotearoa Plan of Action as the waka to get us there.

This is a bold new approach for APEC, first established 32 years ago to promote cooperation in trade and investment, the group is now broadening into new areas.

Over the year, while New Zealand has been Chair, APEC economies have worked together and agreed to cooperate on digital technology and innovation, environmental sustainability and climate change, and inclusion, particularly of women and indigenous peoples.

The plan sets out a range of clear actions to build prosperity, well-being and resilience. Some are for economies to achieve individually, while others will require multilateral collaboration.

To provide a few examples, there are actions for economies to develop tools to help businesses scale up and operate internationally and cost effectively, to encourage a full embrace of digital technologies to maximise connections with global markets, adopt policies that drive economic productivity and innovation, generate momentum through free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization (WTO) to open more export markets, and to take forward initiatives to enable international travel.

Collective tasks include consideration of climate change when making decisions, and to recommit economies to double their renewable energy use by 2030.

This content was supplied thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. To read the Aotearoa Plan of Action in full, visit: http://aotearoaplanofaction.apec.org