Today in Global Small Business: Making Supply Chains More Resilient, Collaborative and Networked

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Research shows severe disruption through the pandemic is driving enterprises to make their supply chains more resilient, collaborative and networked.   
• Social commerce is key.
• Quote of the week:  "The best way to reduce your supply chain inventory is to sell it.” – Dilbert
• Well what do you know.  An instant global cross border payment system – NEW!
• What is Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)?
• New trade pacts show trade collaboration is still possible.

In APEC Region, Services Make Up 67% of GDP

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To widen the door for small business participation in cross-border trade and usher in improved job creation, growth and quality of life for people across the region, greater liberalization of the services sectors in Asia-Pacific markets is needed.  That's according to senior officials and private sector representatives at the APEC conference in the Philippines.

“Services make up approximately 67% of GDP in the APEC region,” says Ambassador Laura Q Del Rosario, Philippine Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs and 2015 Chair of the APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting. “Efforts to improve trade and investment in services will play a vital role in inclusive growth by creating new jobs and allowing people from all parts of the economy to participate in the economic and social mainstream.” 

Learn more:  APEC poised to lower services barriers to lift Asia-Pac small businesses

India and APEC: What It Means

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Should the U.S. back India's membership in Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)?  Walter Lohman and Derek Scissors, Ph.D. seem to think so.

For India to join, it must commit to APEC’s mission to “champion free and open trade and investment.” It must also be able to participate effectively. This means providing the required information concerning its own regulatory environment and working to harmonize it with the existing and future regulations introduced by other members. It may take several years for India to create the capacity to provide and absorb the information, but it would certainly not be the first member to suffer from institutional overload. The benefit to all APEC members of exercising patience with this process will be a much larger active economy with better-matched regulatory standards.

Read more here.

Climate Change is a Growing Global Challenge

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Back from Lyon, France after attending the World Entrepreneurship Forum. I will report about it later this week (catch a quick glimpse of award ceremony venue here).

In the meantime, a new APEC website for the Environmental Goods and Services Information Exchange (EGSIE) went live. The EGSIE is an innovative new website that will promote information-sharing and collaboration related to cutting edge environmental technologies in the Asia-Pacific region and will also promote the dissemination of such technologies globally.

Learn more here.

Let's Not Distort International Trade and Investment

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The global recession has taken a harsh toll on international trade, particularly for many members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. World trade in goods and services will fall sharply in 2009 and is unlikely to rebound much in 2010, so APEC members must ensure that they do not make this bad situation worse by implementing protectionist policies (yes, the second of two posts in two days on this topic) that restrict opportunities for trade and investment.

To this end, APEC members should follow three guidelines for trade policy:

Do no more harm to the global trading system through damaging tariffs or subsidies; help world trade recover by accelerating and broadening the Doha Round trade negotiations; and complement Doha with APEC initiatives on trade, the environment, and regional economic integration.

Read more here.