The United States is hosting this year’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the annual meetings on trade and economic policy among twenty-one APEC member economies, as well as stakeholders, such as the private sector. APEC economies account for nearly forty percent of the global population and nearly fifty percent of global trade. The theme for this year’s APEC, set by the United States as a host country, is “creating a resilient and sustainable future for all” and includes three overarching policy priorities—interconnected, innovation and inclusive.

The first set of meetings for 2023 were collectively known as SOM1 (the first of three “Senior Officials Meetings”) and will conclude with an APEC CEO Summit in San Francisco later this year. USCIB staff attended SOM1 in Palm Springs last month to discuss a wide array of issues including data flows and privacy, gender in customs, digitalization in customs and the sound management of chemicals.

According to USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner, SOM1 meetings on data flows and privacy mainly focused on the Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) system, which was endorsed by APEC leaders in 2011. CBPR is a voluntary, enforceable privacy code of conduct for data transfers by information controllers in the Asia-Pacific region. Perhaps most important, according to Wanner, the CBPR system was conceived to preemptively discourage APEC economies from imposing unreasonable data flow restrictions on companies.

Wanner made an intervention on behalf of U.S. business during the SOM1 Data Privacy Subgroup meeting and the Digital Economy Steering Group meeting on February 19 and 20, respectively. Her intervention focused on the newly created Global CBPR Forum and the potential of this Forum to facilitate cross-border data flows to the economic and social benefit of APEC economies.

“USCIB has been a long-time supporter of APEC’s CBPR system precisely because we felt that it served as ground-breaking model to realize a regional approach to interoperability of privacy regulations,” said Wanner during her intervention.

“Thus, we welcomed with enthusiasm the proposal to ‘globalize’ the CBPR and create the new Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules Forum. We understand the Forum will take a fresh look at the CBPR and update certification procedures for both company and country participation, as well as for Privacy Recognition for Processors. This is timely and appropriate. USCIB also appreciates that the Forum will regularly review data protection and privacy standards to ensure that the Global CBPR and PRP program requirements are aligned with industry best practices.”

Concurrently, USCIB Senior Director for Customs and Trade Facilitation Megan Giblin attended Advancing Gender Equality in APEC Customs Administrations, a workshop focused on project led by New Zealand Customs. This workshop was well attended by the private sector and APEC customs administrations, including Ian Saunders who serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary – Western Hemisphere Department of Commerce and is the U.S. candidate for World Customs Organization (WCO) Secretary General and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chair to the Sub-Committee on Customs Procedures (SCCP) Kristie McKinney, who serves as international relations specialist at CBP.

In addition, Giblin participated in a digitalization workshop on February 18—Implementing APEC’s Framework for Supply Chain Connectivity: Focus on Digitalization of End-to-End Supply Chains.  Giblin and USCIB Senior VP and COO Declan Daly spoke on a panel titled, The Government’s Role in Digitalization of Cross-Border Trade Procedures. The focus of the USCIB presentation was to provide a brief educational overview of the ATA Carnet, a critical tool of trade facilitation that benefits companies of all sizes, including SMEs as well as an update on the efforts to digitize ATA Carnet (known as the “eATA Carnet Project”). Daly spoke on the panel in his capacity as vice chair of the ICC World Chamber Federation (WCF) World ATA Carnet Council.

During his presentation, Daly discussed the eATA Carnet Project and the six economies that were selected for the pilot program—Belgium, China, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States. “APEC is an essential forum for the eATA Carnet Project, particularly because half of the economies in the project are APEC economies,” said Daly. “With the potential addition of thirteen economies that have expressed interest in joining the pilot, we’ll have even more APEC economies that would benefit from this modernized trade facilitation tool.”

This in-person only workshop was widely attended with 20 panelists, over 50 attendees and representation from many of the APEC economy customs administrations, including Chile, Indonesia, Peru, People’s Republic of China, Philippines, Malaysia, the United States and Viet Nam.

The focus of the workshop was on end-to-end supply chain digitalization. Giblin and USCIB Members Michelle Welsh (Google), John Bescec (Microsoft) and Jerry Cook (HanesBrands) worked with the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to provide thoughtful inputs as the workshop was being developed including advancing ATA Carnet and eATA (the digital form of the ATA Carnet) as a prime example of a global digitalization effort. This multilateral effort has both domestic and international aspects, and includes the private sector, economies and global institutions, such as the ICC WCF and WCO.

“From a USCIB perspective, our intent was to advance thoughtful, knowledgeable speakers from an array of sectors and provide positive examples of digitalization efforts,” said Giblin. “Various panels and panelists address priority, such as confidential business information and related protections. We are supportive of digitalization but recognize that more digitalization can lead to more data, data grabs and what is appropriate data to be shared with whom and under what legal mechanisms.”

USCIB members, including Cook, Carol Anderson (Microsoft) and Lisa Schulte (Target) were featured on various panels during the workshop.

The final panel of the day was an interactive wrap-up, which will aid in the APEC Subcommittee on Customs Procedures developing a related report. “We look forward to continuing to engage on this priority area for members,” said Giblin.

“We expect the next round of customs meetings and workshops to take place in late summer in Seattle,” she added. “USCIB is heavily engaged in APEC, including in the areas of customs and trade facilitation. We will remain engaged and will work closely with CBP, USTR and other partners in preparation for the meetings while engaging and supporting USCIB member views.”

Finally, USCIB Manager for Regulation and Trade Chris Olsen participated in meetings of the APEC Chemical Dialogue and the Green Chemistry and Sound Chemicals Management Workshop. One of the main objectives of the Chemical Dialogue was to provide APEC economy updates on regulatory improvements and action plans, while encouraging APEC endorsement and participation in Chemical Dialogue-led project proposals.

The Chemical Dialogue will also continue to explore interest in data exchange, particularly for regulatory cooperation and convergence by focusing on data communication within the supply chain through the digitalization of hazardous information.

“The Chemical Dialogue is one of APEC’s two industry dialogues, where the private sector is institutionally involved in every aspect of the Chemical Dialogue’s work. We look forward to even more industry engagement at SOM3 in Seattle later this year,” said Olsen.