Issued by the Virtual Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting
Wellington, New Zealand, 5 June 2021
We, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT), met virtually from 4-5 June
2021. Our meeting was chaired by Hon Damien O’Connor, New Zealand’s Minister for Trade and Export Growth. We welcomed
the participation of the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Chair of the APEC Business Advisory
Council (ABAC), the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Secretariat.
We, the APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade, are united behind the essential role of trade in tackling the impacts of
the COVID-19 pandemic and in enabling a strong economic recovery for all our people. In these times of uncertainty, we
are seized of the importance of implementing our Putrajaya Vision 2040, and we agree that bold action is necessary in
the following three areas:
1. Trade as a tool to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic
Defeating COVID-19 is the top priority for every economy. Recognising the role of extensive COVID-19 immunisation as a
global public good, we urgently need to accelerate the production and distribution of safe, effective, quality-assured,
and affordable COVID-19 vaccines. As ministers, we are focused on trade and investment’s role in ensuring widespread and
equitable access to such vaccines and related goods. APEC is playing a key role in this effort, consistent with the
Putrajaya Vision 2040. In July 2020 we announced a Declaration on Facilitating the Movement of Essential Goods, which
was a strong demonstration of our willingness and ability to work together to facilitate trade. However, there is more
work to do.
Today, we are pleased to announce a standalone statement on COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Chains (Annex 1), which outlines our
approach to ensuring the trading environment supports the safe and efficient distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and
related goods. We welcome the Best Practice Guidelines for APEC Customs Administrations as an operational and practical
contribution to help facilitate the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and related goods. To continue APEC’s strong work
in responding to the challenges of COVID-19, APEC economies will also agree to consider how to facilitate trade in
medical supplies such as those included in the World Customs Organization (WCO) COVID-19 list,[1] and report to us
before our APEC Ministerial Meeting in November.
It is vital that services trade continues to flow during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we highlight the integral
role freight and logistics suppliers can play in the production, distribution, and sale of vaccines and medical
supplies. We are pleased to announce the statement on Services to Support the Movement of Essential Goods (Annex 2). We
task officials to update us on the progress of this work annually, as part of the review on the 2020 Declaration on
Facilitating the Movement of Essential Goods. We also recognise the importance of providing predictability for service
suppliers beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the work underway to review APEC's role in growing services
competitiveness across the region, we agree to prioritise work to identify and subsequently consider removing
unnecessary barriers to trade in services, particularly those services that expedite and facilitate the flow of
essential goods.
Noting the detrimental impact of border and travel restrictions on our people and our economies, we must pave the way
for the safe resumption of cross-border travel, without undermining efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We task
officials to share information on cross-border travel measures, including through established APEC digital platforms,
and to identify initiatives and protocols related to establishing safe passage within the region, in line with ongoing
multilateral discussions. We direct officials to discuss how APEC can better support air crews, facilitate business
mobility across the region, and advance discussions on digital solutions to facilitate safe travel in the region, and
report on progress before our APEC Ministerial Meeting in November.
We welcome the varied and continuous efforts as well as the contribution of additional resources across APEC to combat
the pandemic, and note the newly established relevant ASF sub-fund in this regard.
2. Rules-based multilateral trading system
Recalling the role of the rules-based multilateral trading system in catalysing our region’s extraordinary growth, we
are determined to cooperate to ensure the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) is successful and delivers tangible
results for all. We will cooperate to further enhance the role of the WTO in establishing rules that support a free,
fair, predictable, non-discriminatory, transparent, and open trade and investment environment.
The WTO must demonstrate that global trade rules can help address the human catastrophe of the COVID-19 pandemic and
facilitate the recovery. APEC economies will work proactively and urgently in Geneva to support text-based discussions,
including for a temporary waiver of certain intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines, as soon as possible
and no later than MC12. As we seek to facilitate the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, we support efforts to deliver
pragmatic and effective solutions on trade and health that reinforce APEC’s work on essential goods, minimise disruption
to, and enhance the resilience of supply chains, and demonstrate the positive role that trade can play in responding to
global health emergencies. As APEC economies, we will play our part by ensuring that emergency measures designed to
tackle COVID-19 are targeted, proportionate, transparent, temporary, and consistent with WTO rules and will support
efforts to unwind remaining trade restrictive measures when appropriate.
We continue to support ongoing necessary reform work to improve the WTO’s functioning. To that end, we recognise the
importance of making progress on enhancing transparency. We engaged in frank and constructive discussions, and are
committed to continuing these discussions regarding improved functioning of the WTO’s negotiating and dispute settlement
functions. We urge WTO members to seek a shared understanding of the types of reform needed by MC12.
One of the most important contributions that the WTO will make this year to strengthen its credibility as a forum for
negotiating new rules and to safeguard our natural resources, is the successful conclusion of the decades-long fisheries
subsidies negotiations. As a group, APEC economies support the WTO Director-General’s calls for the WTO fisheries
subsidies negotiations to achieve a comprehensive and meaningful agreement with effective disciplines on harmful
fisheries subsidies by 31 July 2021.
We must support the WTO and its membership to modernise trade rules for the twenty-first century. We recognise the
positive role that existing plurilateral negotiations and discussions are playing in progressing outcomes. APEC member
participants in the Joint Statement Initiatives (JSI) on e-commerce; domestic regulation in services; micro, small and
medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs); and investment facilitation for development call for substantial progress in the
relevant initiatives. We take note of the calls by the APEC economies who endorsed the Joint Declaration on Trade and
Women’s Economic Empowerment for an ambitious outcome at MC12.
APEC has been at the vanguard of ensuring that trade and environmental policies are mutually supportive, and we are
determined this should continue. We agree on the importance of promoting economic policies and growth that contribute to
tackling climate change and other serious environmental challenges aligned with global efforts, such as the achievement
of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the goals of the Paris Agreement. In this context, we recognise
member economies’ energy transitions to a low emissions future will reflect the different circumstances in each economy.
We are committed to advancing trade and environment issues at the WTO. We reaffirm the importance of trade measures
taken to combat climate change being non-discriminatory and consistent with WTO rules.
We recognise that since APEC Economic Leaders endorsed the APEC List of Environmental Goods in 2012, new environmentally
friendly goods, technologies and innovations have emerged that are not covered by the original list. We are ready to
take concrete steps that build on this legacy, to further APEC’s contribution to addressing the most serious
environmental challenges. We instruct officials to review the implementation of the original list in contributing to
green growth, addressing climate change and securing sustainable economic development objectives, and to update the list
in terms of Harmonised System (HS) tariff classifications for reference purposes by the APEC Ministerial Meeting in
November. At that time, we will consider instructing officials on further potential work to update the list. We also
support APEC efforts to discuss the impact of non-tariff measures on trade in environmental goods.
We reaffirm APEC Economic Leaders’ commitments to work on environmental services and welcome recent APEC reports on the
ways in which APEC economies could support increased trade in environmental services. We task officials to advance work
on enhancing trade in environmental services, including by identifying environmentally related services across service
sectors, and to report on progress at our APEC Ministerial Meeting in November. To ensure that services can contribute
to long-term sustainability, we agree that economies will then take forward discussions on how to increase trade in
environmental and environmentally related services, including by supporting liberalisation, facilitation, and
cooperation. We instruct officials to report on the outcomes of these discussions at the 2022 MRT.
We recognise the importance of the global agricultural and food systems, underpinned by WTO rules, bringing food, fibre,
and other critical products to people all over the world, supporting global food security and sustainable economic
development. While the agriculture sector has been resilient and international markets have remained relatively stable
during the pandemic, it remains one of the most protected sectors in global trade. We agree on the need for a meaningful
outcome on agriculture at MC12, reflecting our collective interests and sensitivities, with a view towards achieving
substantial progressive reductions in support and protection as envisaged in the continuation of the reform process
provided in Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture and existing mandates.
Market-distorting subsidies undermine a level-playing field. We are also increasingly concerned about those subsidies
that have a negative environmental impact. We recall APEC's 2015 commitment to rationalise and phase out inefficient
fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, while recognising the importance of providing those in need
with essential energy services. We task our officials to explore options, for those members that are in a position to do
so, to undertake a potential voluntary standstill on inefficient fossil fuel subsidies for progress to be reported to
ministers in November. We support capacity-building initiatives to advance progress towards the commitment, including
further voluntary peer reviews.
APEC’s work needs to deliver for all members of society, including women, MSMEs, and others with untapped economic
potential. In this regard, we note recent initiatives in APEC to unlock the economic potential of Indigenous peoples. It
is our responsibility to ensure our economic policies and trade and investment environment also promote equality of
opportunity and advance economic inclusion. APEC should move at a faster pace to support businesses of all types,
particularly MSMEs and start-ups, to access domestic and international markets. Our economic and technical cooperation
and capacity building can reduce administrative barriers; promote education, training and skills development; enhance
access to technology, finance and cross-border payment mechanisms; and ensure access to market and regulatory
information.
APEC is also making useful contributions towards identifying policies and implementing structural reforms in support of
inclusive and sustainable transitions to the future of work. To this end, we strongly support the ongoing work to
implement the La Serena Roadmap for Women and Inclusive Growth across APEC’s work agenda, which supports the economic
empowerment of women. We encourage work that empowers women and others with untapped economic potential to access
capital and markets, including through trade.
3. Shaping our future prosperity
It is critical that the economic settings in each of our economies enable trade and investment to become driving forces
for our long-term economic prosperity, as we respond to the economic crisis. We welcome APEC’s efforts to refresh its
structural reform agenda, which will outline pillars of work including creating an enabling environment for open,
transparent, and competitive markets and boosting business recovery and resilience against future shocks to promote
strong, balanced, inclusive, innovative, and sustainable growth.
The pandemic has accelerated the process of digitalisation, with the adoption of digital solutions no longer optional
but necessary. We instruct officials to respond to ABAC’s urgent call to accelerate progress on the APEC Internet and
Digital Economy Roadmap work programme. We must create an enabling, inclusive and non-discriminatory digital economy
that fosters the application of new technologies, allows businesses and entrepreneurs to thrive, facilitates the flow of
data, strengthens consumer and business trust, and allows goods and services to move seamlessly across borders. At the
same time, it is important to bridge the digital divide by facilitating access to information and communication
technologies and the skills everyone needs to thrive in the digital economy where no one is left behind. Our work on the
digital economy is critical for our future economic prosperity and is reflected in the APEC connectivity agenda and
initiatives to build and safeguard an open, healthy, competitive, seamless and comprehensively connected and integrated
Asia-Pacific region.
As a concrete step that can also make a significant contribution to our response to COVID-19, we will accelerate
implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, particularly those articles relating to: the accelerated use of
digitalisation for border processes; pre-arrival processing of electronic declarations; electronic documents, electronic
certification, electronic payments; expedited shipments; and border agency cooperation. APEC is well-placed to support
economies in these efforts. This will further enhance the efficiency of supply chains. We agree to embed digital trade
facilitation measures taken by APEC members during COVID-19. We task officials to report on progress when we meet again
at the APEC Ministerial Meeting in November.
We support ongoing efforts to conclude, ratify, implement and upgrade bilateral and regional trade agreements that
benefit and protect our people, enhance predictability and transparency for our businesses, complement the multilateral
trading system, and contribute to deeper economic integration in the region. These undertakings are strengthened by
APEC’s extensive work to support high quality and comprehensive trade and investment outcomes in the Asia-Pacific,
particularly our ongoing implementation of the Lima Declaration on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). We
note ABAC’s call to ensure FTAAP remains the organising principle for regional economic integration. We also recognise
the importance of regional, sub-regional and remote area connectivity through quality infrastructure development and
investment, based upon relevant APEC work.
Last year APEC Economic Leaders proclaimed the Putrajaya Vision for an open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful
Asia-Pacific community by 2040, and we urge officials to finalise their design of a concrete implementation plan across
all elements of the vision by the time of the 2021 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting.
We thank New Zealand for hosting the APEC MRT meeting and look forward to reviewing progress when we meet again in
November.
Haumi ē, Hui ē, Tāiki ē
Join, Work, Grow. TogetherAnnex 1: APEC MRT Statement on COVID-19 Vaccine Supply ChainsAnnex 2: APEC MRT Statement on Services to Support the Movement of Essential Goods