Benefits to Region
Services providers in the APEC region have encountered significant barriers to services trade caused by opaque, unpredictable, and overly burdensome authorization processes to provide services in foreign and domestic markets. Within the subject of services authorization and domestic regulation, the concept of technical standards, and good practices relating to the development of technical standards, have historically been underexplored. In 2018, APEC members endorsed a set of Non- Binding Principles for Domestic Regulation of the Services Sector, which aim to reduce unintended consequences of regulatory diversity, simplify procedures, and promote transparency to avoid unnecessary complexity or disguised restrictions, while promoting the ability of regulators to meet their regulatory objectives. However, the principles contain only a single general provision relating to technical standards, broadly encouraging open and transparent practices for the development and adoption of technical standards. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the services landscape, enabling new and emerging methods for the delivery of services that make good practices for technical standards development even more relevant. As champion economy for domestic regulation of services under the GOS, the United States undertook a study and workshop that examined global and regional trends on the development and application of technical standards for services. Endorsed by GOS members in February 2024, the study on Services Domestic Regulation: Envisioning Next Generation Technical Standards Principles identified important principles and effective practices for developing technical standards that meet policy objectives and mitigate unintended trade-restrictive effects. In order to leverage these learnings across the APEC region and beyond, it is critical to understand how these learnings may be applied in a wide range of unique domestic contexts, and to integrate these learnings into APEC’s shared commitment to achieve greater regional economic integration in services markets in the APEC region.

Eligibility and Fund Priorities
By equipping APEC economies with the knowledge and tools to upgrade domestic regulatory environments with effective technical standards for services that simultaneously meet domestic policy objectives and support trade, this project clearly contributes to achieving the trade and investment liberalization and facilitation objectives articulated in Part 1 of the Osaka Action Agenda. Specifically, this project relates to Area 3. Services (“providing, in regulated sectors, for the fair and transparent development, adoption and application of regulations and regulatory procedures for trade in services”) and Area 10. Deregulation/Regulatory Review and Reform (“enhancing the transparency of regulatory regimes” and “eliminating domestic regulations that may distort or restrict trade, investment or competition and are not necessary to achieve a legitimate objective”). In addition, this project supports the reiterated commitment under the 2023 APEC Leaders’ Declaration “to accelerate work in response to the APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap (ASCR) Mid-Term Review” by supporting synergies with efforts concerning the fast-evolving trade landscape, dealing with regulatory heterogeneity, and furthering de jure and de facto services market opening.

Project Overseers seek to utilize APEC funding for travel and related costs to facilitate the participation of the 11 APEC travel-eligible economies and up to 6 speakers in order to expand opportunities for knowledge-sharing, thereby maximizing the capacity building outcomes of this project. Project Overseers will self-fund the remaining speaker travel costs and hosting costs, and will self-fund the labor costs/contractor fees associated with project development and implementation. While exact costs are yet to be determined, the estimated costs of travel and hosting as well as the known costs of labor/contracting fees determines that the United States will meet the 50% self-funding requirement for non-travel eligible economies.

Capacity Building

The project will support APEC members to achieve the commitments set out in the ASCR Implementation Plan (2016-2025), as well as the recommendations set out in the ASCR Mid-term Review. Building upon the endorsed study on Services Domestic Regulation: Envisioning Next Generation Technical Standards Principles, this project will build the capacity of APEC economies to integrate identified effective principles and practices to develop technical standards for services within their domestic contexts, which can help economies establish sound regulatory environments that allow market actors to adhere to domestic regulations with greater efficiency, and facilitate trade and investment in the region, amongst other regulatory priorities.

Specifically, this project seeks to provide a knowledge-sharing platform for APEC economies to exchange experiences, challenges, lessons learned, and key considerations for the development of technical standards for services; and for APEC members to engage with experts to determine how identified principles and practices could be applied within their unique domestic context. The outcomes may also contribute to technical standards-related disciplines for services domestic regulation, which could serve as a long-standing advice for APEC economies’ future development of technical standards for services.