Full text: The 22nd APEC Economic Leaders' Declaration (2)

11. Recognizing APEC has a critical role to play in shaping and nurturing regional economic integration, we agree that APEC should make more important and meaningful contributions as an incubator to translate the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) from a vision to reality. We reaffirm our commitment to the eventual FTAAP as a major instrument to further APEC's regional economic integration agenda.

12. In this regard, we decide to kick off and advance the process in a comprehensive and systematic manner towards the eventual realization of the FTAAP, and endorse the Beijing Roadmap for APEC's Contribution to the Realization of the FTAAP (Annex A). Through the implementation of this Roadmap, we decide to accelerate our efforts on realizing the FTAAP on the basis of the conclusion of the ongoing pathways, and affirm our commitment to the eventual realization of the FTAAP as early as possible by building on ongoing regional undertakings, which will contribute significantly to regional economic integration, sustained growth and common prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. We instruct Ministers and officials to undertake the specific actions and report the outcomes to track the achievements.

13. We welcome the establishment of a Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI) Friends of the Chair Group on Strengthening Regional Economic Integration (REI) and Advancing FTAAP, and urge the Friends of the Chair Group to continue its work. We agree to launch a collective strategic study on issues related to the realization of the FTAAP, and instruct officials to undertake the study, consult stakeholders and report the result by the end of 2016.

14. We endorse the establishment of an APEC Information Sharing Mechanism on RTAs/FTAs. We highly commend the work on the implementation of the Action Plan Framework on Capacity Building Needs Initiatives (CBNI), and endorse the Action Plan Framework of the 2nd CBNI. We instruct officials to design targeted and tailor-made capacity building activities to narrow the gap of the capacities of APEC economies to facilitate the eventual realization of the FTAAP.

15. In addition to the above, we reaffirm the role of APEC in addressing next generation trade and investment issues and sectoral initiatives, and agree to accelerate "at the border" trade liberalization and facilitation efforts, improve the business environment "behind the border", and enhance regional connectivity "across the border" to accumulate more building blocks for the realization of the FTAAP. Therefore, we:

-- reaffirm our commitment to reduce applied tariffs to five percent or less by the end of 2015 on the list of environmental goods that we endorsed in 2012 in Vladivostok. We call upon all economies to redouble their efforts in order to realize the economic and environmental benefits. We will instruct officials to report progress in achieving this ground-breaking commitment at our meeting next year in the Philippines. We welcome the work on capacity building on Environmental Goods (EGs) commitment implementation;

-- welcome the inaugural meeting of the APEC Public Private Partnership on Environmental Goods and Services (PPEGS) on renewable and clean energy trade and investment, and endorse the APEC Statement on Promoting Renewable and Clean Energy (RCE) Trade and Investment;

-- welcome the progress on exploring products which could contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth as part of our concrete commitment to rural development and poverty alleviation;

-- endorse the Action Agenda on Promoting Infrastructure Investment through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and instruct officials to take concrete actions to strengthen cooperation on PPP to promote more robust and sustainable infrastructure investment and development in the APEC region;

-- welcome the Case Studies on Sustainable Investment in the APEC Region and encourage officials to consider and draw experience and good practices from the nominated cases to promote sustainable cross-border investment;

-- endorse the APEC Cross Border E-Commerce Innovation and Development Initiative and encourage economies to designate or establish Research Centers of Cross-border E-commerce Innovation and Development on a voluntary basis;

-- recognize that the effective protection and enforcement of IPR including trade secrets incentivizes and facilitates innovation and foreign direct investment and the dissemination of technology through licensing and partnerships;

-- endorse the APEC Action Agenda on Advertising Standards and Practice Development to promote alignment of advertising standards and reduce the cost of doing business across the region;

-- endorse the Asia-Pacific Region Automotive Industry Sustainable Development Declaration and welcome the outcomes of the 2014 APEC Regulatory Cooperation Advancement Mechanism (ARCAM) Dialogue on Electric Vehicle Standards. We welcome the APEC Actions to Promote the Widespread Usage of Electric Vehicles.

Advancing Global Value Chain Development and Supply Chain Connectivity

16. Recognizing that Global Value Chains (GVCs) have become a dominant feature of the global economy and offer new prospects for growth, competitiveness and job creation for APEC economies at all levels of development, we endorse the APEC Strategic Blueprint for Promoting Global Value Chain Development and Cooperation (Annex B). We welcome the progress made in the measurement of Trade in Value Added (TiVA), services, SMEs and GVCs resilience, etc., and instruct officials to advance the work through the CTI Friends of the Chair Group on GVC to put forward new initiatives under the Strategic Blueprint in 2015 and beyond.

17. We endorse the Strategic Framework on Measurement of APEC TiVA under GVCs and the Action Plan on this Strategic Framework. We instruct the newly-formed technical group to work closely with the WTO, OECD, the World Bank, UNCTAD and other related international organizations, with an aim to complete the construction of the APEC TiVA Database by 2018.

18. We endorse the Terms of Reference of Promoting SME's Integration into GVCs, and welcome the launch of the related activities. We instruct officials to make efforts in advancing this work.

19. We welcome the commitment of APEC economies to move forward with the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, including the notification by many APEC developing economies of their category A TFA obligations. We welcome, as well, the progress this year in improving the performance of APEC supply chains through targeted, focused capacity building and technical assistance. In this regard, we applaud the establishment of the APEC Alliance for Supply Chain Connectivity, which will contribute to our goal in achieving a ten percent improvement of supply chain performance by the end of 2015 and our broader supply chain connectivity objectives. We encourage economies to increase the resources of the APEC Supply Chain Connectivity Sub-Fund to ensure that our capacity building and technical assistance projects succeed to meet our ten percent performance improvement goal and to further our trade facilitation objectives.

20. We agree to establish the Asia-Pacific Model E-port Network (APMEN) and welcome the first batch of APEC Model E-ports nominated by the APEC economies. We endorse the Terms of Reference of the APMEN and agree to set up the APMEN operational center in the Shanghai Model E-port, and instruct officials to make further efforts to contribute to regional trade facilitation and supply chain connectivity.