2011/SOM1/IEG/003

Chair’s Summary ReportAPEC Investment Experts Group (IEG) Meeting

Sendai, Japan20 September 2010

1. IntroductionThe third IEG meeting for 2010 was held on 20 September 2010 in Sendai, Japan.  The meeting was chaired by the IEG Convenor, Noriyuki Mita, and attended by approximately 40 representatives from all 21 member economies, including representatives from ABAC, UNCTAD and from Colombia and Costa Rica, both of which are IEG’s official guests for 2009-2011.  The APEC Secretariat’s Program Director of IEG and a representative of the Policy Support Unit (PSU) also attended.

2. Opening Remarks by APEC IEG Convenor

IEG Convenor, Mr Mita, welcomed the delegates and the IEG guests, Colombia and Costa Rica, and sought cooperation for an effective meeting. He also mentioned that this would be his last meeting.

3. Business Arrangements

Japan’s delegation welcomed IEG members to Sendai and wished them a pleasant stay. IEG Convenor set out the business arrangements for the meeting.

4. Adoption of Agenda (2010/SOM3/IEG/001)

The meeting adopted the Draft agenda.

5. Reports on Activities and Developments since the last IEG Meeting held in Sapporo, Japan on 30 May 2010.

(a) IEG Convenor’s Report (2010/SOM2/IEG/002)

IEG Convenor provided the meeting with the brief development on investment related activities since IEG2 held in May and also highlighted discussion on APEC 2010 key priorities at the SOM2 process and the MRT thereafter which included the Assessment Report on the Achievement of the Bogor Goals, review of the progress on REI priorities, Growth Strategy, the new structural reform agenda, ECOTECH and APEC reform, among others. CTI/TPD discussed an APEC roadmap for investment. CTI2 welcomed progress made in the key areas in REI, especially investment. SOM2 reached a consensus, and MRT agreed, to extend the mandate of the PSU, reaffirming its important contribution to APEC’s policy deliberations. MRT decided to continue deliberations on possible pathways toward achieving a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, welcomed the concrete results and developments in the areas of investment, services, standards and trade facilitation and instructed that work be further accelerated. MRT also agreed to continue the discussion on formulating the APEC Growth Strategy including its follow-up mechanism and action plan. IEG Convenor then touched upon the outcomes of the APEC Growth Strategy High-Level Policy Round Table held in Beppu, Japan on 7-8 August and 5 attributes of the Growth Strategy, namely, Balanced Growth, Inclusive Growth, Sustainable Growth, Innovative Growth and Secure Growth. He recalled the discussion at the Seminar on Capacity Building for Sharing Success Factors of Improvement of Investment Environment held on 19 September and encouraged members to continue the discussion on Growth Strategy. He also informed the meeting that ABAC recently sent a letter to him encouraging updating the Non-Binding Investment Principles (NBIPs) and looked forward to receiving a report from the ABAC representative. He reminded members to keep good communication with their CTI/SOM representatives for any inputs they might request IEG to make (2010/SOM3/IEG/002).

The meeting endorsed the Chair’s Summary Report of IEG2 2010 which had been approved intersessionally prior to the meeting (2010/SOM3/IEG/003).

(b) APEC Secretariat Report

APEC Secretariat presented a brief report on APEC-wide developments (2010/SOM3/IEG/004). The meeting was informed that the funding for two IEG Core Elements projects had been just approved by BMC. APEC Secretariat appreciated the cooperation of members, especially two QAF members, namely Mexico and New Zealand, for their efforts. Respective Project Overseers would soon receive official approval notification from the Secretariat and, they could start implementing the projects immediately. As per Session 3 of project approval, APEC Secretariat informed the result of the prioritization of the three IEG Concept Notes which had been conducted intersessionally as follows:

- Priority 1: Core Elements Project – Moving beyond Phase III – Activity 1 Study on Core Elements of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) in domestic investment frameworks (United States, Japan)

- Priority 2: Core Elements Project – Moving beyond Phase III – Activity 4 Study on Transparency in IIAs (Japan, United States)

- Priority 3: Core Elements Project – Moving beyond Phase III – Activity 6 APEC-UNCTAD Workshop on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) (the Philippines)

APEC Secretariat would take care of submission of the Concept Notes by the submission deadline on 23 September. Thereafter, CTI would assess/rank and prioritize all the Concept Notes of CTI and its sub-fora in a week or so. The exact timeline for Session 3 would be discussed and decided at the BMC meeting on 22 September and would be informed to the members. She also brought to the attention of the meeting of the visa requirement of the United States. IEG Convenor reminded members to cooperate in submission of monitoring and completion reports in time.

A representative of the APEC PSU briefed the meeting on the features of the newly launched statistics portal, StatsAPEC (http://statistics.apec.org), which contains 124 indicators (all approved by SOM) and statistics of members since 1989. He welcomed members’ comments for improvement of the database. Due to resource constraints and time-consuming data collection work, PSU was using secondary data. Responding to the question from UNCTAD, he explained that the data have been downloaded from the UNCTAD site with proper commissions and also there were links on the glossary pages to direct sources and a copyright was acknowledged. As for data consistency questioned by Chile, he informed that PSU had checked consistency of different sources of data and, if found inconsistent, such data would not be used and therefore, presented data on the StatsAPEC would be consistent in methodology. IEG Convenor suggested such explanatory description be added on the database and, encouraged members to use the database.

6. IEG Projects

(a) Reports on Completed Projects:

Capacity Building for Dispute Prevention and Preparedness (CTI 42/2009T)

United States reported on the result of the workshop held on July 26-30 in Washington, D.C., which was successfully organized with participation of 50 officers from 17 economies and from IEG guests, Columbia and Costa Rica. Representatives of the private sectors also attended. (2010/SOM3/IEG/005) This was a continuation of a series of workshops which began in 2008 regarding the IIAs obligations and investor-State disputes under IIAs. The specific topic of the workshop was strategies for preventing treaty-based investor-State disputes and how to become better prepared to deal with such disputes. The workshop started with discussion on trends of IIAs, in particular trends in disputes as well as trends in awards. Discussion included the importance of drafting IIAs reflecting economies’ policies objectives and communicating IIAs obligations within the governments, team-building and coordination among agencies including at the local government level, the importance of finance for education and participation of local governments, and the views of the private sectors on the causes of disputes and difficulties of resolution. The U.S. delegate was grateful to Canada, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Mexico for excellent case studies and presentations. A completion report outlining discussions and recommendations would be circulated. He expressed special thanks to UNCTAD for its collaboration and expertise and to the APEC Secretariat for administrative support. He mentioned that some of the themes discussed at the Workshop have been already followed-up by UNCTAD in the IEG project. United States would take a close look at the participants’ feedback to determine future work as follow-up of the Workshop.

The representative of UNCTAD thanked the United States and the APEC Secretariat for smooth implementation. She commented that the investor-state dispute settlement was one of the areas UNCTAD has tried to develop its research and work. She was very encouraged to learn concrete experiences on how states receive and implement dispute-settlements from the participants of the workshop who had a lot of experiences to share on the policies and strategies and approaches, whether formal or informal, for dispute prevention and preparedness, all of which made very rich input for UNCTAD as well.

The representative of Japan, as co-sponsoring economy and one of the participants in the event, thanked the United States, UNCTAD and the APEC Secretariat for organizing a great program with wide varieties of excellent speakers. Especially for economy like Japan which had never experienced dispute settlement, the workshop was really interesting to become aware of a lot of needs to be done for dispute settlement preparation. He pointed out the importance of having good communication between policy makers and investors in order to prevent disputes. He expected future works to be carried out in this field.

IEG Convenor appreciated the United States for organizing the seminar which introduced a newer idea. He pointed out the difficulty of agencies other than those involved in negotiations or implementation of IIAs and local governments to understand obligations of IIAs and, the need to have good communication and institutional framework to make agencies and local governments keep such obligations. He mentioned that the workshop included many important aspects in IIAs which had not been discussed so much before and hoped that members continue discussion on this subject and further develop ideas and concrete activities.

The representative of Mexico, as one of the participants of the workshop, shared her experience particularly regarding designing of a framework of dispute prevention which was a new topic for all the economies. There was much work to do in this area even for Mexico which had disputes experiences because there were no established institutional way to prevent such disputes and different experience were available in different economies. She commended the excellent topics of the Workshop which were appropriate for her economy. She thanked the United States and organizers for the workshop and appreciated that the participants were very well prepared. She mentioned that the most contributing was sharing experience of practices and, opportunity to hear various views including those of outside APEC.

Capacity Building for Sharing Success Factors of Improvement of Investment Environment – Phase 3 (CTI 03/10T)

Japan reported the discussion and findings made at the Seminar held on 19 September, which was attended by more than 100 participants including local business people, Mayor of the city of Sendai, and excellent speakers who made informative presentations on the success stories and challenges. The activity was the last phase of Japan’s three-year activities of investment facilitation and promotion, two of three pillars of the IEG mission. Focuses were made on investment promotion in the environmental field and on improvement of services of investment promotion agencies. The Seminar could share important points, such as the importance of energy environment policies which might affect investment, importance of communication with stakeholders including private and public dialogue. The Seminar contributed to the IFAP and discussion of sustainable growth laid out in the APEC Growth Strategy. Japan expected a project of this type would continue.

Malaysia found the Seminar very beneficial and timely as the Malaysia’s current development plan targeted until 2020 actually put emphasis on environment-related investment projects. She commended a very holistic approach presented by speakers from New Zealand and Tienjin Ecocity project which provided good insights for Malaysia and feedback to policy makers. United States found the program was useful and well organized to show various aspects of investment, not only in environment but also investment promotion activities across all the sectors and collaboration between two seemingly different aspects.

IEG Convenor mentioned that the project was also in line with the APEC Growth Strategy under discussion, as investment should be one of key drivers to growth after the crisis. He commented that the workshop provided members with great opportunities to share good practices and challenges. He recalled the successful seminar on investment promotion in Thailand last year and encouraged IEG to

continue activities in this area of encouraging empowerment of IPAs including their cooperation with related organizations.

IEG Convenor reminded United States and Japan of a new reporting requirement, to submit completion reports to the Secretariat by 1 Feb 2011.

(b) Reports on Ongoing Projects:

Filling the Infrastructure gaps in APEC developing economies (CTI 11/2009A)

Viet Nam reported that, after IEG2 it had submitted to the APEC Secretariat with a request to extend the project completion for eight months (up to the end of August 2011) due to delays in identifying consultant, which had been approved. Viet Nam was completing detailed on-line research to select consultants and drafting ToRs. Currently several consultants in the APEC region were showing interest, including Australia, Mexico and Singapore. In addition, Viet Nam was consulting to collaborate with international organizations such as the World Bank, UNCTAD, ADB and USAID that were giving Viet Nam legal and technical assistance to build up the public-private partnership (PPP) framework. Viet Nam was targeting to finish the first draft research in February 2011 and, scheduling a seminar in Viet Nam in April. Responding to the request of Mexico, Viet Nam informed that it would send a specific timeline of report preparation in October. Japan thanked Viet Nam for its initiative, and mentioned that it was interested in discussing PPP as a new approach for filling the infrastructure gaps. Viet Nam noted interest of member economies in the PPP. It pointed out that there were many views, even contradictory, of various international organizations and donor economies and that it was not easy for Viet Nam to get a very comprehensive legal framework of the PPP. It hoped to finalize a detailed outline of the research and work with the ToRs to invite consultants from Australia, Singapore, Mexico, Japan and other economies to set up a full research on comprehensive approach to be useful not only for Viet Nam but other APEC developing economies. At the moment, the report would consist of two parts: the first part would set up the PPP in a very comprehensive way that would provide concept of history, necessity, model PPP contracts, financial and legal aspects, mechanism to avoid disputes and other issues. Second part would share all information and experience Viet Nam learned. Viet Nam hoped that it would circulate a detailed outline of the research in October for members’ comments.

IEG Convenor emphasized the importance of members’ participation because this would be an area to provide opportunities for investment. He expressed his strong expectation on the study and encouraged Viet Nam to keep moving forward.

Development of APEC Guide to Investment Regimes E-Portal and electronic publication (CTI 01/2009)

Australia briefed on the progress of preparation of the electronic version of the Investment Guide (2010/SOM3/IEG/006) and also shared a copy of its draft content (2010/SOM3/IEG/006att) for the proposed e-publication for members’ reference. A survey questionnaire was finalized by the consultant after consultation with IEG members. Some delays were being experienced as a result of difficulties integrating a separate web portal with separate functionality into the APEC website system. She reminded that the members were responsible for the contents of responses and only simple editing would be made by the consultant and the APEC Secretariat this year following the agreed timeline. However, from next year on, economies would be asked to confirm if the data were up to date and they could update their information whenever appropriate throughout the year. She called for support and cooperation of members for this continuing effort. She suggested that the publication should go on live regardless how populated the contents would be. In other words, pages would be left blank if there were no inputs. She also touched upon the technical security difficulties of the APEC website which would prevent external business people to use a search function. She proposed that the review of the adequacy of the e-Portal should be made after six months and economies might want to discuss if some improvement should be required and, that Australia would be happy to prepare another Concept Note next year if members felt the need for a search engine or other changes such as the format.

The APEC Secretariat explained the delay of opening an e-portal for members’ input work due to technical difficulties identified during the user acceptance test which was conducted by the Project Overseer, consultant and the APEC Secretariat. She reported that the nominated Focal Points would

soon receive their IDs and Passwords to log in the e-portal and directly submit their inputs once the list would be completed with nomination from one economy. [Post-meeting note: The list was completed during the IEG meeting and IDs and Passwords were issued around 23 September.] IEG members and Focal Points would be informed of the submission deadline of their responses through the e-Portal once an e-Portal would be ready. United States, Australia, Japan and China thanked Australia for their initiative to prepare this useful tool which would provide great information channel to the business sector and members to better know their investment regimes. China also pointed out the importance of updating and maintenaining the e-Portal. IEG Convenor mentioned that the investment guidebook and the MAG’s WebTR would be part of the APEC’s efforts to increase accessibility and transparency and good information provision which could receive support of the business sector. He encouraged members of early submission of their inputs. Technical questions could be addressed to the Secretariat. .

Investing Across Borders: an important diagnostic tool to assist in IFAP implementation - Stage 1 (CTI 43/2009T) (2010/SOM3/IEG/007)

Australia reported on the progress of the project. The World Bank had finalized survey of most of the five economies (Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Hong Kong, China; New Zealand, Chinese Taipei) which had not been covered before. The World Bank and Australia would draft a format and circulate it among IEG members for their comments. The World Bank would then finalize the report and present it to IEG at the next meeting. The report would focus on regional comparison, but not cross-economy benchmarking. The goal would be to make the report serve the APEC’s internal discussion to assess the IFAP implementation.

She also explained to the meeting of the decision of the proposing economies to defer the submission of the full proposal of the Stage 2 until the report from the Stage 1 would have been received and reviewed by IEG.

Japan, as co-proposing economy, appreciated the members’ comments. Australia and Japan would continue consultation to have a better project and in due course, seek support of members to realize the project.

China thanked Australia for initiating the project and having put lots of efforts. At the same time, China referred to the concerns expressed by some economies in 2008 on the World Bank’s methodology including coverage and samples of companies and interviewees, data collection/verification and data process. He wondered if the project tried to adopt the World Bank methodology which had been controversial already and whether the project would be useful for APEC to make it serve as diagnostic tool to assess the IFAP implementation. China liked the project meet the needs of the IFAP implementation but some indicators such as cross-border restriction, were not totally for investment facilitation indicators. He also expressed concerns on data credibility and asked if samples of representatives were enough. China looked forward to seeing the Stage 1 report which would determine if the Stage 2 project would be taken forward. China expected that this project could improve the methodology by addressing data discrepancies and the weakness of the methodology rather than adopting the World Bank methodology and make it more APEC-tailored and facing diversity of APEC members.

The United States reminded the group that a representative of the World Bank came to an IEG meeting in Singapore in 2009, and provided an explanation of the Investing Across Borders project, including a detailed explanation of its methodology. While no one was suggesting that the methodology employed is perfect in every respect, the research is a very valuable diagnostic tool to help measure progress and help economies identify possible areas for improvement of the investment climate.

IEG Convenor confirmed the voluntary withdrawal of the IAB Stage 2 project proposal from the Session 3, with a view to accommodate China’s concerns as well as economies’ interest and to improve the quality of the proposal. IEG could discuss how to improve the quality of the project with the output of Stage 1. He also confirmed the members that the Concept Note of the Stage 2 project had been already endorsed at IEG2 and therefore it would not require additional endorsement of IEG when it would be submitted in the future. The meeting agreed that the Concept Note would be treated as such and added to other endorsed Concept Notes in ranking/prioritization.

Core Elements Project – Moving beyond phase III – A Handbook and Seminar for Negotiators (CTI 15/2010T) (2010/SOM3/IEG/009)

Chile and Mexico briefed the meeting on the work plan to prepare a handbook and organize a seminar to review a handbook. Mexico would be in charge of the step 1, handbook, which would provide IIAs negotiators with an important practical tool to conduct effective negotiations. Preparatory work already started and a draft handbook would be prepared during October to December, which would also be a part of materials of the seminar. The handbook would be published in book format and on-line. It would include each of the core elements in IIAs and assist in developing model agreements.

Chile would implement the step 2, seminar, which would be held during the first week of February 2011 in Santiago. Exact date would be announced shortly. The seminar would peer review the handbook among negotiators in International Investment laws, and ensure the highest quality of the handbook. The seminar would emphasize clarity and coherence of IIAs, between IIAs, commitments of states and provide negotiating teams with necessary tool for effective negotiation and coherence. Chile encouraged all economies to bring appropriate experts to the seminar.

Core Elements Project – Moving beyond phase III – Intensive Training Course (CTI 16/2010T) (2010/SOM3/IEG/008, 008a, 010)

Peru reported the progress of the project. It proposed that the training course would be held in Lima, Peru on 7-11 March. The course would include presentations of speakers who would explain the key issues, provide a stocktaking of treaty provisions, analyze the different approaches and the recent treaty practice, discuss approaches to negotiations and conduct a simulation exercise. Preliminary program was tabled (2010/SOM3/IEG/008a). Peru would welcome recommendation for additional speakers. Invitation would be circulated in late January.

Ms Anna Joubin-Bret of UNCTAD thanked Chile, Mexico and Peru for introducing the core elements activities in APEC. She made two points. Firstly, she emphasized the checklist toolbox character of the handbook which would be useful for negotiators during the negotiation, providing various options on each of the core elements and considering their consequences. The seminar would serve as peer review to get concrete inputs to produce a comprehensive handbook so that any possible approaches would not be missed. Secondly, a week-long full-fledged capacity building training would follow the pattern of the training course conducted in Kuala Lumpur. It would aim at sharing experiences accumulated by negotiators to date. She welcomed participation of not only those who would be joining the negotiation teams but also experienced people so that there would be continuation of approaches.

IEG Convenor informed that these two core elements projects had been recently approved by BMC for funding. He shared his observation that in the recent years, members had been active in negotiation of IIAs and gradually become familiarized with provisions. Through the process, IEG had contributed to the capacity building. He recalled with his experience that several years ago, the initial stage of negotiation had not been spent on negotiation but on dissemination of the contents and getting mutual understanding of the IIAs’ content. Now most economies obtained good expertise but still, capacity building would be very useful. The seminar in Kuala Lumpur last year received good feedback from the participants. IEG also had good reputations of other activities, not only on the contents but on enhancing mutual communication among other negotiators and people. He saw the great value of the projects and expected the projects be implemented successfully.

New Zealand, as QAF member, mentioned that it had opportunity to go through the proposal details and congratulated a fine quality of the proposal and thanked Chile, Mexico and Peru for their efforts. He expected the project to improve quality of negotiation and expressed support. Mexico appreciated UNCTAD for helping to put everything together in a comprehensive program, which would really benefit APEC economies. She stressed the importance to reflect all the views and opinions in the handbook to have deep comprehension of disciplines in negotiations.

IEG Convenor expressed his high expectation to have comprehensive handbook and good seminars and suggested concrete programmes and schedules be shared by members as soon as they became available. The meeting suggested that coordination among the Project Overseers on the timing of activities would help members to plan in advance and to identify participants. APEC Secretariat would also keep members informed of the schedules of activities.

(c) New Project Proposals for 2010-2011

IEG Convenor informed the meeting that IEG’s three Concept Notes for Session 3 had been intersessionally circulated, endorsed and, prioritized by IEG members in the following order. These Concept Notes would be further reviewed and prioritized by CTI and, submitted to BMC for its in-principal approval in mid October

- Core Elements Project – Moving beyond phase III – Activity 1 Study on Core Elements of IIAs in Domestic Investment Frameworks (United States, Japan, TILF-US$42,670)

- Core Elements Project – Moving beyond phase III – Activity 4 Study on Transparency in IIAs (Japan, United States, TILF-US$37,670)

- Core Elements Project – Moving beyond phase III – Activity 6 APEC-UNCTAD Workshop on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (the Philippines, TILF-US$110,000)

United States explained that the Activity 1 project would focus on how core elements would be reflected in domestic regulations. The study would be conducted by a consultant and would take stock of the approaches of economies’ domestic legislation to core elements of IIAs. The added value of this study would be to provide a tool for member economies in approaching consistency issues linking domestic and international investment frameworks. Substantive guidance and input to consultant would be provided by the UNCTAD Secretariat’s (2010/SOM3/IEG/011).

Japan explained that the Activity 4 study would conduct a study to deepen members’ understanding on transparency which was one of the Core Elements of IIAs and also an essential element of the NBIPs, the Bogor Goals and the Osaka Action Agenda. It would seek to explore the implications of commitments to transparency in IIAs including with respect to ISDS provisions not only from the economies’ viewpoints (which make commitments) but also from other beneficiaries’ views. The study would start next year and the first draft would be circulated to IEG members in mid next year, and to be finalized by end of 2011 (2010/SOM3/IEG/012).

The Philippines explained the plan of a 3-day capacity building workshop on ISDS to be held in Manila in April 2011, dealing most recent cases involving interpretation and application of core elements of IIAs to advance understanding and command of participants on the impact of ISDS, negotiation and implementation. The workshop would be a direct follow-up to the two previous workshops on ISDS in 2007 and 2009. They would prepare a draft programme by November and circulate it among members by December for comments. Invitation would be sent out in January-February (2010/SOM3/IEG/013).

UNCTAD expressed appreciation to United States, Japan and the Philippines to initiate these activities. She made additional explanation on the three proposals which would move forward the Core Elements projects from its Stage 1 & 2 which tried to identify core elements mirrored in the intra-APEC IIAs (Stage 1) and with NBIPs and the Bogor Goals and IIAs in negotiation in and outside APEC members (Stage 2). Now the idea of the project would be to see the other side of the mirror, how core elements would reflect and would be reflected in the domestic frameworks. This would try to move the consistency exercise a bit further and to help member economies see how their investment agreements were reflected in their domestic frameworks and how these agreements in turn create impacts on and were being implemented in their domestic frameworks. Transparency was the topic UNCTAD had studied 10 years ago when it was discussed as one of the main topics of Singapore issues within WTO. It would be quite interesting to find the content and commitments in IIAs regarding transparency because it had various implications and different actors not only states but investors. There was also a lot of pressure for broader access by civil society at large on investor-State dispute cases. Also there was the degree of intrusiveness of transparency. Virtually everything in domestic frameworks would be related to investment. Idea would be to try to identify the scope of transparency obligations and commitments when they talked about investment laws and regulations. It would be interesting to track the changes over 10 years. UNCTAD was very glad and gratified for the Philippines to host the workshop again. It was very relevant to keep track of the recent progress

in ISDS because there had been a lot of arbitral laws coming out which had impacts on our day-to-day work on investment agreements.

IEG members were invited for comments and suggestions and also encouraged to be co-sponsors of these Concept Notes. APEC Secretariat informed the meeting of a tentative timeline which would be confirmed at BMC3 on 22 September and the next steps to take during the Session 3 approval process. APEC Secretariat would keep members informed of further instruction of BMC. Mexico and Malaysia expressed their interest in joining proposals as co-sponsors. Chile commented that it was difficult to prioritize among three Concept Notes since core elements project as a whole was an important issue. It also suggested it very helpful to follow the discussion on transparency at UNCITRAL starting in October. The Philippines thanked UNCTAD to facilitate developing concept notes and looked forward to successful implementation of all the projects.

IEG Convenor wished to see all 5 projects endorsed for implementation and to have fruitful studies, handbook and seminars in 2010-2011. He emphasized the importance of coordination among 5 activities, especially timing and content and suggested project overseers and proponents to have close look at the other projects and to bring good synergy. He also encouraged members’ active participation in these activities.

(d) Projects led by other fora related to the IEG activities

In-Depth Seminar on Enforcing Contracts (Phase I of the EoDB Action Plan) (EC 01/2010A)

Korea briefed the meeting on the outcome of the Seminar held on 20-21 June in Seoul, which was attended by 58 participants from 15 member economies and the World Bank, which made an introductory presentation on three enforcing contract sub-indicators, namely, time, cost and procedures. Hong Kong, China; Japan; Malaysia and Singapore introduced their reform experiences in the civil litigation system and the use of information technologies. Lessons learned included that there was no cure-all type of reform and customized approach would be required, that there were challenges on social, legal and cultural factors, and that reform should be supported by sufficient IT infrastructure and IT education. The seminar was relevant to IEG since enforcing contract was the beginning of any business when considering investment. The Phase II activity would be launched next year and Korea would continue to play role as champion economy in this area.

IEG Convenor encouraged members to consider participating in the activities of Phase 2 next year. Korea encouraged IEG members to talk to people in charge of legal system and let Korea know who would be interesting parties.

EC Project “Ease of Doing Business Capacity Building Workshop for Dealing with Permits - Reforming the Regulatory System for Construction Permits” (EC 02/2010A)

Singapore briefed the meeting on the workshop to be held on 18-22 October in Singapore (2010/SOM3/IEG/014). The workshop would aim at experience sharing to raise APEC economies’ awareness of successful reforms/systems in the Champion Economy or from the region from which members can learn. The IEG members were reminded that the nomination would be due on 23 September and should be made through the EC representatives of each economy to make sure that the final nomination would be coordinated by the EC representatives. This was to avoid similar confusion in identifying APEC-funded participants of the Workshop on Getting Credit when the Project Overseer found the nomination by an IEG member had been submitted without coordination with their EC representatives.

Peru appreciated Singapore’s initiative to hold a seminar on EoDB. He informed that Peru would send participants who were exactly in the field.

IEG Convenor appreciated the workshop specializing in a specific sector of interest and encouraged members of early nomination through their EC representatives.

SME Working Group Project “Best Practice Guide: Improving business regulation in APEC member economies, based on knowledge shared from the Ease of Doing Business/Private Sector Development Workshops series.” (SMEWG 01/2010T)

New Zealand updated the meeting on the project. Search for consultants had been in progress but, it was affected by the recent earthquake in New Zealand. The New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development was fully focusing on post-earthquake recovery support and the full draft guide would be unlikely completed by the end of 2010. Instead it was proposed that individual chapters be drafted and distributed to relevant APEC forums for comments. A final guide would be produced in 2011 based on the outputs of the activities of EoDB workshops as part of the APEC’s Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS). New Zealand explained that three more workshops on EoDB/PSDS had yet to be held. He suggested that the Protecting Investors workshop would be a project IEG might want to consider sponsoring and/or holding at an IEG meeting next year and, mentioned that they would be interested in the IEG’s thoughts or information of duplication. Further details of these workshops would be provided later.

IEG Convenor commented that activities in the EoDB Action Plan in collaboration with EC and SMEWG, were closely related to IEG’s activities and needs of private sectors. He suggested that interested economies directly contact New Zealand and EC/SMEWG representatives.

6. IFAP Progress and discussion

Australia as lead of the IEG’s IFAP Implementation Steering Group was invited to brief the meeting on the progress of developing methodologies for measuring the progress of IFAP. Australia explained that in 2009, PSU was tasked to develop methodologies to measure progress made by APEC economies of implementation of IFAP. Broadly the proposed methodology sought to indentify KPIs for the actions under eight IFAP principles. Concerns were raised by some economies regarding selection of appropriate KPIs, use of best practice approach and also about economies being ranked against the other economies. Original methodology also proposed the use of the World Bank indicators as well. The aim of the process would be to measure progress on implementing IFAP, not to benchmark economies or rank economies against each other but to benchmark economies’ progress as a whole under IFAP. Australia had been discussing IFAP measurement and benchmarking exercises with some economies but received some concerns. Discussions were continuing and some progress had been made and, some options were being discussed. She did not think anything would be finalized soon, but there would be continuing further talks. In term of IFAP, she said that the first stage of implementation would be finalized this year. Australia was having some discussion on how to continue IFAP, which was a high-level, robust set of principles for economies to follow in terms of reaching the Bogor Goals. There would not be an IFAP 2 or new set of principles, but actually maintaining existing principles. She suggested that the best place of this role be a part of the Strategy for Investment and that members have further discussion of IFAP implementation, in expanding some action items.

IEG Convenor reminded the meeting that CTI was the main fora to discuss IFAP, but IEG was asked to provide expertise on CTI’s discussion and, also tasked to report the progress of implementation of 15 IFAP priority capacity building activities, which IEG2 had already discussed and submitted its report to CTI2. Remaining issue would be on how to summarize IFAP implementation to the Ministers and report the issue of KPIs, for which discussions were continued at the CTI and SOM. As explained by Australia, people were still discussing KPIs because of many opinions and concerns expressed by members. Members would not have report of concrete achievement or development of KPIs soon. On the other hand, as Australia pointed out, it would be necessary to discuss IEG’s direction related to the IFAP. Principles and actions in IFAP would be very useful and meaningful. IEG Convenor encouraged members’ discussion on how to do with IFAP in the future and suggested that discussions be made in the context of the Strategy for Investment in the next agenda.

United States thanked Australia for undertaking the difficult task. He asked if Australia had timeframe in mind in having a revised report of KPIs for all economies to look at and comment. At the end of the timeframe of IFAP implementation, he pointed out the urgent need of APEC to show business communities the results of the progress. Noting the different views of members and difficulty to find agreement, he stressed that what members were trying to do would be very basic and simple, to show where APEC had begun and where it had made progress. He stressed that unless APEC could do that very quickly, APEC’s credibility would be lost. Australia responded that it was not aware of any

timeframe of the KPIs development though the progress was being made. Until members reached a resolution on how the KPIs will be constructed and how they would measure progress towards IFAP, members would not have a solution. She stressed that discussion with relevant economies that had problems on the current proposal should continue to find a solution. She also emphasized that the solution should be credible, acceptable by member economies and independent, but she added that members had not reached that stage. IEG Convenor referred to the point made by United States regarding the deliverables of IFAP. He mentioned that development of KPIs was not an easy task. While KPIs were developed, members would need to report back to Ministers on implementation of IFAP. Though IEG had already reported the progress, members were encouraged to continue consideration on what could be done or should be done in the future.

8. Discussion on APEC Strategy for Investment

IEG Convenor explained that IEG 1 & 2 had discussed a “Road Map”, which was renamed as “Strategy” this time in order to implement/promote our activities under the strategic guidance. The document had been intersessionally circulated, incorporating very useful inputs from economies and business sector as discussed at the CTI/TPD as well. Japan briefed the meeting that as honest broker and facilitator, it had revised the content and prepared a final draft based on fruitful discussion and constructive comments of members. It presumed that members would not see any problem or impediments to reach consensus. Regarding procedural aspects, since the document was basically related to IEG activities but also linked to other fora as well as that some aspects would need inter-linkages with other activities, Japan would like to put for final approval in CTI. Regarding the Public-Private Dialogue (PPD), the plan would be to hold the first dialogue in 2011 and after that, perhaps on an ad-hoc basis, to have the second and after dialogues. The IEG Convenor reminded the meeting that at IEG2, members had very active discussion on the Road Map. One of the issues discussed was about the PPD. ABAC, private sectors and some economies strongly supported the idea while some expressed concerns on issues which the PPD would take up. Others were concerned on the duplication of the PPD with mechanisms they already had with the industry, or suggested that it should not be an alternative to dispute settlements. There was misunderstanding and uncertainty at that time and, Japan clarified them. Japan also clarified themes and positioning of PPD. He also brought to the attention of the meeting that the Strategy described importance of IFAP under the facilitation pillar and welcomed any ideas on the other two pillars referring to good discussion on future projects on the Core Elements and progress reports on the projects in the morning.

Malaysia thanked Japan for a revised document. She mentioned that it had generally no objection and would support the proposal with clarification on the PPD. She sought clarifications from Japan on how to determine and coordinate the themes and topics/issues to be discussed at the PPD and how they can be coordinated and, on the endorsement of sectors to be invited whether there would be involvement of ABAC in selection of private sectors.

The Philippines also thanked Japan and commented on the pillar of facilitation, in particular the PPD. She took note the revision and, in principle, supported regular consultation PPD bearing in mind its importance and contributions to improving business climate. She suggested that setting clearer guidelines on types of issues that the dialogue would address would be important, which would avoid duplication of efforts in other fora such as IPAs, BITs or RTAs which provided similar mechanisms.

Canada shared with the meeting its comments on three pillars. On advanced principles and practices, Canada would be supportive of APEC’s efforts to increase awareness and capacity and APEC to adopt a sound investment principles and investment agreements in domestic frameworks to ultimately provide improved productivity and stability to investors. On facilitation, Canada would encourage pragmatic approach to improve investment environments through the implementation of IFAP, PPD and capacity building. On promotion, Canada would be supportive of APEC’s efforts in encouraging capacity building for IPAs and sharing best practices of investment promotion among APEC economies. Canada sought for further clarification on details of intents of APEC conducting promotional activities because it was not entirely clear how APEC would host and receive investment delegations as the Strategy suggested.

Indonesia suggested that PPD should avoid duplication and that Japan should clarify the form of dialogues in setting by sectors so that members could choose specific matters in the sectors and could gain more advantages.

Japan appreciated members for their constructive comments. It shared the comments from Malaysia to avoid duplication. He mentioned that PPD would need to have added value. Japan was not intending to have something similar that would decrease our momentum and would take those comments seriously in the formation of dialogues through consultation with all the members and taking their comments. As per comments from the Philippines and Canada, Japan would be flexible on how to formulate the details of this. It would be a general strategy and all the items might not be completely crystallized. But under these principles and sub-items, each economy could put something under these frameworks. As a whole, IEG could grasp these activities under the Strategy. In that sense, Japan would be flexible and not thinking to have a very solid strategy under which IEG’s future activities would be defined. This would not be Japan’s intention. Members could be promoting the debates on this in the coming years. It would be up to members to decide how they would complete activities under the strategy.

United States was very grateful for Japan to prepare the revised paper. The value of the document would be to take all of APEC’s activities of investment not only in IEG and give conceptual framework which would allow members to explain in simple term to business community and other stakeholders outside APEC on what APEC was doing and how it would fit into a broader scheme. He shared observations on three pillars. On Advanced Principles and Practices, APEC had good works on core elements. A lot were on research basis. APEC has to decide what to do with those researches. APEC had NBIPs in 1994 and OAAs in 1995. In the past 15 years, the world had changed a lot and APEC would have to change with it. He encourage that APEC discuss what could be done. On IFAP, United States agreed with Australia that IFAP would be something never ending, and principles would remain true and actions would be valuable which we should continue to implement. On Promotion, he agreed with Canada’s comments. He was not sure what promotional activities could be undertaken by APEC itself or if it would be appropriate for APEC to do. He thought what APEC could do is to facilitate sharing good experiences between economies and how they conduct their own promotional activities. He mentioned that hopefully that would be what the paper was getting at.

ABAC representative expressed its support to the Strategy. This year ABAC were having vigorous discussions on promoting investment. ABAC believed that APEC economies must step up their efforts to make investing in the region easier, cheaper and faster, obviously to ensure the sustainability and the current economic recovery. He mentioned that since the establishment of APEC, the matters in which companies were organizing cross-borders had evolved a great deal. In light of this, APEC should review and update, if necessary, best practices and principles that had been agreed in the past to ensure the relevance to the current nature of situation. Consequently ABAC conducted a review of the APEC NBIPs and identified areas that needed to be updated in the 3rd ABAC meeting in August. The changes ABAC was recommending were attached (2010/SOM3/IEG/016). ABAC would welcome any questions and comments. As far as other ABAC activities were concerned, ABAC in August had drawn up the recommendations to the APEC leaders, in which ABAC recommended again the establishment of a consultative mechanism within APEC for government-private sector representatives to discuss ways in which the investment environment could be improved. Economies should also consider an APEC mechanism for consultation on proposed regulations so that the implementation of new measures could be considered before they were put into effect. Based on ABAC views and as necessary, APEC should update the 1994 NBIPs to ensure they continue to promote both foreign and domestic investment in the face of changes in the way business was conducted in the region.

Thailand mentioned that it had studied the document and had no objection. It would believe that with a new strategy, members would achieve objectives of strong and sustainable growth within the target year.

IEG Convenor shared his initial observations based on the discussions. As discussed at IEG1 & 2 and at this meeting, he thought that the Strategy had a very good value to show the direction of investment-related activities of IEG and other fora in very simple words and concept of three pillars so that APEC could show what it was doing or explain characteristics of each activity. In that sense, he reconfirmed that everyone had agreed on the value to structure our activities along with the three pillars. Secondly for Advanced Principles and Practice, IEG was very actively conducting activities in

collaboration with UNCTAD including analytical studies and capacity-building activities. He referred to one suggestion made by ABAC and United States to discuss the possibilities of updating the NBIPs. Currently, IEG Convenor would like to keep the issue of updating and improvement of NBIPs open for future discussion but to take note of the suggestion. As for Facilitation, he agreed with United States and Australia that the content of principles and recommended actions in IFAP would remain valid and meaningful. He suggested thinking of concrete steps to facilitate and encourage IFAP implementation. He did not hear concrete ideas at this moment but would hope IEG to discuss it beyond 2010. As for PPD, he mentioned that in general there was a strong support from members. At the same time, some economies sought clarification in selection of issues and participants. The Philippines pointed out the importance of setting guidance for the type of issues to be raised at PPD. IEG Convenor suggested that this discussion be separated from the document itself and hoped Japan to elaborate concrete ideas of PPD in the future. He was glad that characteristics of PPD had been clarified. As in the document, PPD would have two main characteristics, the first one for sharing information of dialogue mechanisms used by the member economies and the second characteristics for APEC-wide dialogue itself to share challenges and practice on the commonly-shared holistic issues, especially issues of interest to both member economies and private sector. He referred to the point made by some economies that the dialogue should not be a one-way dialogue where only private sectors would express their interest, but rather it should have the other direction where host economies’ governments would explain their practices so that they could obtain much understanding on policies. The dialogue would indicate further directions for APEC activities. As United States pointed out at IEG2, industries’ views should be heard in selection of topics. Members could also consider the meaning to take such topics in the context of the activities as APEC. IEG Convenor mentioned that he did not see objections to the dialogue and hoped to develop concrete ideas and to begin discussions on concrete themes. As for Promotion, Canada and United States had pointed out the importance to think what members could do under APEC. From the experiences at the Success Factor Seminar, IEG Convenor thought encouragement or empowerment of the IPAs through capacity building activities would be important. The item 3 on page 4 of the Strategy could suggest such capacity building activities in the future. He welcomed any ideas on these. He mentioned that IEG did not have to endorse the strategy because it would be endorsed at CTI. He would report to CTI on IEG’s discussion as input and welcome any comments before CTI.

Malaysia informed that ASEAN had provisions under the new agreement where they proposed to conduct investment mission among ASEAN members. She pointed out that capacity building in APEC was more on information sharing and suggested if APEC could have a mission to each economy. She proposed that Japan might want to explore if the same idea could be adopted at APEC.

The meeting agreed to submit the Strategy to CTI and that the IEG Convenor would report IEG’s discussion to the CTI members.

9. Outreach and collaborative activities of APEC with ABAC, guest economies, and International Organizations.

ABAC

ABAC representative informed the meeting that the document (2010/SOM3/IEG/016) included ABAC recommendations of potential changes to the NBIPs in 1994. This review had been conducted under the guidance of ABAC Hong Kong, China with participation from ABAC Australia, Thailand, Indonesia and China. The text had been updated with a view to reflecting the current investment environment in the region from the business viewpoints. Most of the changes were self-explanatory. They included, amongst others, recommendation to include a new section on “protection and enforcement of rights”, and changes in the section on transparency. He encouraged members to review these recommendations. He summarized that ABAC recommendation to Leaders this year on investment included recommendation for establishment of consultative mechanism within APEC for government-private sector, discussion on improvement of investment environment and also updating of the NBIPs. There would be a call for enhancing capacity building and peer review projects to support APEC principles and best practices including a recommendation for conducting a PPD on investment as a good opportunity to enhance capacity building. ABAC was also interested in the dialogues potentially to address to specific behind-the border and across-the border issues.

Chile thanked for ABAC briefing. He raised a question on what ABAC was trying to seek for adding the paragraph of “transparency of interpretation and implementation” and especially why ABAC related transparency. Chile had no strong views but did not understand the reason. Chile also commented to incorporate a phrase “to the extent possible” in the paragraph of repatriation. Otherwise, Chile could go along with the ABAC recommendation. ABAC explained the reason for revising the principle on transparency. ABAC suggested changes in two parts, one was “transparency of laws”, where the words “of laws” were added. The reason for adding “transparency of interpretation and implementation” was to propose new principles for transparency. Accordingly the words “of laws” were added to distinguish this principle with the new one. ABAC wanted to distinguish transparency of laws and transparency of interpretation and implementation. He mentioned that the existence of clear and appropriate primary law in the first instance was fundamental as described in the preceding paragraph of “transparency of laws”. Experiences had shown that the progress from the substantive primary law to actual implementing regulation and licensing - live operations of the functioning business generating revenues and profits - could be severely frustrated and delayed by the practical breakdown of interpretation of the same laws and regulations between central and local agencies. Therefore ABAC wanted to distinguish the two principles.

China appreciated efforts of ABAC in drafting the revision of the NBIPs. She suggested deletion of the word “specified” at the beginning of the paragraph on “national treatment”, considering the reality within APEC economies that exceptions could be specified or not in terms of providing to foreign investors national treatment from different stages of the whole life of investment. Second point was about investment incentives, which appeared a bit strange to China. She did not understand “amongst themselves” when reading the whole sentence, especially the part “which distort fair … these principles”. China understood the concept but it would be grammatically confusing and suggest deletion of “amongst themselves”. Regarding the “repatriation and convertibility” part, China knew that the purpose would be to ensure the free transfer of funds which was one of the crucial interests from the views of investors. However, she mentioned that thinking about the reality especially after the financial crisis, members just like all other economies in the world, would have certain limitations or restrictions on transfer under foreign exchange control. She suggested a bit mild wording, such as “member economies should endeavour to ensure” or to put some conditions in front of this, such as “with specified foreign exchange formality requirement (or “exceptions”)”.

Mexico commented on the paragraphs of “national treatment”, “investment incentives” and “protection and enforcement of rights”. Regarding “national treatment”, she shared the comments of China that she had problem with the word “specified”. Regarding “investment incentives” and “protection and enforcement of rights”, she would send proposal of wordings.

ABAC appreciated comments of China and Mexico. He mentioned that these were just recommendation from ABAC and, this would be very much collaborative process. ABAC would be very happy to hear recommendations on ways to revise languages that might be more helpful in communicating what IEG felt appropriate to put. As responses to specific points on “national treatment”, inclusion of the word “specified” was intended to underscore the commitments to transparency that business felt vital to this agreement. Transparency and clarity in exceptions should be something that ABAC was committed to identifying the policies so that business could operate in an environment that was transparent and predictable to them. ABAC understood that there was some sensitivity to those languages. He mentioned that ABAC would look at revising them based on the inputs from economies.

NZ mentioned that overall proposal seemed to be fine. It was not perfect but, members did not like to get into negotiation at the meeting. It would help business to do what they need to have transparency and predictability. He raised a question on the reason of insertion of the 4 th paragraph and asked about a specific issue ABAC was trying to address with this.

ABAC explained that it felt the notion of sustainable development would support a wide range of principles. The overarching consideration of long-term benefit for future generations had become increasingly well established in both the government, business and legal and academic circles. This new paragraph was intended by ABAC to reflect the increasing importance of the concept of sustainable development. This would be an attempt to incorporate the concept of sustainable development into the investment work as had been done in many works of APEC. ABAC felt it would

logically follow the investment criteria and conditions that were set in the preceding part of the document.

IEG Convenor mentioned that as ABAC stated, these recommendations were not a material for negotiation or endorsement or agreement. These are only recommendations, but very useful recommendations. It would be up to members to decide what kind of discussion to make or react to them. He proposed the members to keep open the future discussion and encouraged them to further develop ideas and consider these recommendations.

UNCTAD

UNCTAD representative reported to the meeting on the World Investment Forum held in Xiamen, China on 6-9 September, hosted by the Government of China and implemented by UNCTAD. The Forum was a huge event in terms of the size, level of participation and outputs. Events included the heads of state summit which was participated by the Vice President of China as well as 8 heads of state and 79 ministers, followed by the Ministerial round table. Discussion focused on contribution by investment to sustainable development, especially the role of investment in the post crisis era. In addition, there were several more technical fora including the IIA Conference and a tripartite conference on green investment and development. The IIA Conference discussed investment agreements and domestic policies, trends and innovations of international investment regimes, and Investor-State Dispute Settlements. The IIA Conference made it completely transparent and open by making all discussion available on the website. UNCTAD received invitation from Qatar to hold the next WIF in 2012. She took opportunity to appreciate the collaboration with APEC and IEG Convenor for his support and trust on UNCTAD.

Representative of China shared the details of discussion at the IIA Conference. The first topic was relationship of IIAs and sustainable development. Function of IIAs and the value of function could not be over-valued, which would be after all one of many factors to make investors determine investment such as infrastructure, legal environment and the size of market, etc. Secondly, IIAs should balance between space of host to govern economic affairs and the protection of foreign investors. Interested question was the attitude towards the ISDS mechanism and towards strengthening the ISD, especially international arbitration. Participants shared approaches to improve Investor-State arbitration mechanism: first to enhance transparency of international arbitration, secondly to encourage state to give more interpretations of their agreements and to limit the interpretation by tribunals, and thirdly to build an appeal mechanism to the tribunals like WTO.

IEG Convenor thanked UNCTAD and China for sharing information of the World Investment Forum which provided very good insights.

United States and Japan congratulated UNCTAD and China for excellent arrangement of the Forum which was wonderful opportunities for informal and formal dialogues. Japan mentioned that it had opportunity to present the process of APEC and IEG. He felt that IEG was exactly on the right track in the world trend, in particular, activities about Core Elements was very much on the center of the debate and future course of IIAs. He believed that IEG could make step-by-step contribution to the future course of investment in collaboration with UNCTAD.

IEG Convenor mentioned that in recent years, IEG had strengthened cooperation with UNCTAD. Collaboration with UNCTAD had been very successful and contributed strengthening the network even outside APEC.

IEG Guests for 2008-2010

Colombia and Costa Rica were invited to present features of their economies and the activities related to investment (2010/SOM3/IEG/017, 018).

10. New IEG Convenor’s selection

IEG Convenor informed the meeting that the IEG members had been intersessionally invited to consider nomination of a new IEG Convenor and that Japan nominated Mr. Toru Shimizu, Director,

OECD Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as new Convenor. United States supported the nomination. The meeting tentatively approved Japan’s nomination. IEG Convenor advised the members to submit additional comments, if any, to the APEC Secretariat by noon, 27 September 2010 (Singapore time). Then the endorsement would be officially informed to IEG members and the CTI.

Mr. Shimizu mentioned that he was honored to succeed Mr. Mita who was a great person of unchallengeably high-degree of experiences and knowledge in this field. He would try to catch up Mr . Mita’s level and would do his best to bridge and communicate to overarch the interest of all economies.

[Post-meeting note: No further comments were received as of the deadline. The nomination was endorsed and informed to IEG members and the CTI Chair on 28 September.]

11. Review of CAP 2010 – looking forward to 2011

IEG Convenor tabled a draft revised CAP 2010 for members’ review and comments (2010/SOM3/IEG/019). The meeting agreed to submit comments, if any, to the APEC Secretariat by 5pm on 21 September 2010. Upon approval, the revised CAP would be submitted to CTI. [Post-meeting note: No further comments were received as of the deadline. The revised CAP was submitted to CTI3 on 21 September.]

12. Convenor’s Report to CTI

IEG Convenor presented a draft Report to CTI. The meeting agreed that the members would submit comments, if any, by 5pm on 21 September to the APEC Secretariat (2010/SOM3/IEG/020). [Post-meeting note: No substantial comments were received. A draft Convenor’s Report was finalized after the deadline with correction of a typo and submitted to CTI3 on 21 September.]

13. Date and Venue of the Next Meeting

United States representative informed that the next year meetings would be roughly the similar dates with this year, SOM1 in the end February to March in Washington DC, SOM2 in late May in Montana and, SOM3 in September in San Francisco. IEG1 would be held at the margin of SOM1. Exact dates would be announced later and provided to members later through the APEC Secretariat.

14. Classification

The Group reviewed and approved the draft document classification list of the meeting.

15. Closing remarks of IEG Convenor

IEG Convenor took the floor to express his appreciation to the members for their warm support during his convenorship and sought members’ continued support to a new convenor. He would remain to be responsible for IEG by the end of 2010 and, Mr. Shimizu, a Convenor-elect, would assume convenorship starting January 2011. He touched upon various achievements of IEG, including the Core Elements projects, Australia’s leadership in IFAP, development of the APEC Strategy for Investment. He was especially thankful to good network solicited among APEC members and hoped the network to be strengthened. He wished IEG would strengthen further its work under Mr. Shimizu’s convenorship. All the members appreciated the excellent leadership and efforts of Mr. Mita and wished him well for his new endeavour.