Policy Areas Archives

USCIB Attends APEC Digital Trade Policy Dialogue

Published on August 29, 2016

APEC_Digital_TradeHelen Medina, USCIB’s vice president of product policy and innovation, recently attended the Trade Policy Dialogue on Digital Trade at the Third Senior Officials Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Peru.

The objective of the meeting was to discuss digital trade rather than to define the terms of digital trade. Participants included representatives from the U.S. government, various APEC economies, OECD, and industry, including several USCIB member companies.  Provided below is a brief summary of the meeting.

The dialogue was made up of several sessions, each focusing on a different topic within digital trade. The first session discussed the research on the value of digital trade, as well as challenges posed by issues of data privacy and cross-border data regulation. The second session focused on the EU’s data privacy framework and its potential burdensome impact on APEC SMEs.

Highlights from another session included shared stories from USCIB members PayPal and Walmart on their successes within the digital trade sphere. PayPal discussed the importance of their business for SMEs; through PayPal, smaller companies are able to do business globally because people trust sending payments through their services. Walmart shared their current experience of incorporating digital information to create better services for their customers, and the necessity of open data for this process. This session also recognized the potential for growth in APEC’s future role due to its cross-regional and interagency nature, in creating policies that best help digitization of traditional economies and promote legal environments for innovation.

To follow up from this Trade Policy Dialogue, a report will be submitted to APEC’s Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI).

Digital Trade: Barbara Wanner, bwanner@uscib.org

USCIB APEC Priorities Paper (here): Elizabeth Kim, ekim@uscib.org

USCIB Welcomes Treasury White Paper Criticizing EU State Aid Investigations

Published on August 24, 2016

Fountain pen on taxNew York, N.Y., August 24, 2016 – The United States Council for International Business (USCIB), which champions the global interests of American companies, welcomed the U.S. Treasury’s white paper criticizing the European Commission’s ongoing state aid investigations. The investigations are aimed at recouping prior-year tax benefits freely granted by European Union member state tax authorities on companies’ global operations.

“We wholeheartedly agree with the Treasury’s conclusion that these tax investigations challenge EU member state tax sovereignty, go far beyond accepted practice and threaten to undermine ongoing efforts to strengthen international tax cooperation,” said USCIB President and CEO Peter M. Robinson. “USCIB is concerned that these moves by the EU could dramatically undercut the OECD’s efforts to build a new and stable international consensus.”

After three years of negotiations, the OECD/G20 project on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) designed to address corporate tax avoidance concluded last year with governments developing a framework for modernizing international tax rules.

In a blog post accompanying the release of the white paper, Robert Stack, deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for international tax affairs, wrote: “These investigations have major implications for the United States. In particular, recoveries imposed by the Commission would have an outsized impact on U.S. companies. … The investigations have global implications as well for the international tax system and the G20’s agenda to combat BEPS while improving tax certainty to fuel growth and investment.

Implementation of the BEPS project was a major focus of USCIB’s most recent OECD International Tax Conference, held last June in Washington, D.C. USCIB provides American business input to the OECD’s work on global tax policy through its role as the U.S. member of BIAC, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD.

About USCIB:
USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence. Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world. With a unique global network encompassing leading international business organizations, including BIAC, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More information is available at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, VP Communications, USCIB
+1 212.7035043 or jhuneke@uscib.org

Government and Business Discuss Updates on Chemicals Management at APEC

Published on August 18, 2016
APEC Chemical Dialogue
APEC Chemical Dialogue regulators forum

The chemicals trade cuts across many industries, and its products are widely traded across borders. The chemicals industry is a key economic building block in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum economies, and the APEC Chemical Dialogue (CD) serves as a forum for regulatory officials and industry representatives to find solutions to challenges facing the chemical industry in the Asia-Pacific region. It reflects APEC members’ recognition of the importance of engaging with the private sector and building public-private sector dialogue and cooperation for mutual benefit.

Government and industry representatives from 16 economies across the Asia-Pacific region attended the CD meeting in Lima, Peru on August 17 during APEC’s third senior officials meeting (SOM III). Helen Medina, USCIB vice president for product policy and innovation, participated in the dialogue along with USCIB members. During the meeting, officials agreed to revise the CD Strategic Framework document, which includes changes to the dialogue’s shared goals. The framework’s current goals include (1) expand and support cooperation and mutual recognition among chemical regulators in the region to facilitate trade; (2) enhance understanding of the chemical industry’s role as an innovative solutions industry; and (3) encourage chemical product stewardship, safe use, and sustainability.

During the meeting, the group discussed how it will promote the Best Practice Regulation
Checklist which was developed to assist APEC economies when considering changes to
chemicals regulation and when developing new chemicals regulation. The hope is that the
checklist will provide best practices for regulators.

Also noteworthy is the development of a form of self-certification by importers of chemical products, a project which is being conducted alongside the APEC Subcommittee on Customs Procedures.

“The project would develop a certification document to be used by economies that puts the burden of compliance with chemical control legislation on the importer of record and with enforcement of that legislation with the agency who issued the regulations,” Medina said.

The CD also discussed updates on an upcoming paper to examine chemical trade flows, possible contributions to the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management policy and the American Chemistry Council’s proposal on sustainable chemistry. During the meeting participants also shared updates on countryspecific initiatives on chemicals management. For detailed information on these items, please contact Helen Medina, hmedina@uscib.org

USCIB Attends 2016 APEC Senior Officials Meeting in Peru

Published on August 15, 2016

Lima_PeruComprised of 21 Asia-Pacific economies that account for 40 percent of the world’s population and half the world’s trade, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is the region’s top economic dialogue dedicated to encouraging economic growth, regional cooperation and trade and investment.

USCIB members are continuing to make the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) a priority forum in which to engage, as it is key to accelerating regional economic integration as well as promoting balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative and secure growth.

To aid private sector engagement, USCIB works with the U.S. APEC business coalition to meet with APEC officials and participate in APEC meetings throughout the year, culminating in the APEC CEO Summit, a meeting of CEOs and leaders from the APEC economies.

To direct and facilitate the work with our members and APEC officials, USCIB has compiled its annual priority issues and recommendations paper, which can be found here. As can be seen in our priorities, USCIB in actively engaged in a number of the APEC working groups related to Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) ICT, Chemicals and Customs.

Two of USCIB’s policy team are attending the third APEC Senior Officials Meeting and related meetings (SOM III) in Lima, Peru, held August 15-28. See details below for how they and our members will be engaging:

Customs and Trade Facilitation

Megan Giblin, USCIB’s director for Customs and trade facilitation will be participating in the following APEC meetings: APEC Business – Customs Dialogue (ABCD); Subcommittee on Customs Procedures meetings, under her role as co-chair for the Customs Virtual Working Group; the APEC Alliance for Supply Chain Connectivity (A2C2) meetings; as well as an event that Peru will be hosting related to the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Megan will continue advocacy work initiated at SOM I related to WTO TFA ratification as well as engagement on implementation efforts, establishing and fostering relationships with Customs officials from APEC economies as well as members of industry, and identifying linkages to the work underway within the USCIB Customs and Trade Facilitation Committee, including, but not limited to, e-commerce, de minimis, and single-window efforts.

Gilbin serves as the industry Co-Chair to the APEC Subcommittee on Customs Procedures Virtual Working Group (VWG), which is comprised of both customs officials and members of the private sector. The VWG will not meet in person at SOM III, but Megan will give the VWG update during the SCCP meetings. Additionally, Megan is a member of the A2C2, which is focused on capacity-building efforts and the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Given that several USCIB members are part of the Customs VWG and the A2C2, Giblin will continue to consider ways to increase industry engagement and potentially reduce duplicative industry resource or input requests.

Chemicals Management 

Helen Medina, USCIB’s vice president for product policy and innovation will be attending the APEC Chemical Dialogue (CD) meetings.  She will be supporting USCIB members attending the CD-related meetings which include: the American Chemistry Council, American Petroleum Institute, The Boeing Company, General Electric and the Nickel Institute. The CD serves as a forum for regulatory officials and industry representatives to find solutions to challenges facing the chemical industry in the Asia-Pacific region. It reflects APEC members’ recognition of the importance of engaging with the private sector and building public-private sector dialogue and cooperation for mutual benefit. USCIB members have found this forum a valuable place to promote their regional business priorities. For example, USCIB members will be participating in the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) capacity building workshop. The goal of the workshop is to

  • Raise awareness of the international trade obligations of GHS
  • Raise the level of knowledge on the aims and methodologies to implement GHS by government and the private sector; and
  • Determine the proper APEC actions to reduce non-tariff barriers (NTB) attributable to GHS implementation

Digital Trade

USCIB member Christopher Hoff (Crowell & Moring LLP), will be participating in the SOM III meetings of the Electronic Commerce Steering Group (ECSG) and the Data Privacy Subgroup (DPS) on behalf of USCIB. Importantly, USCIB ICT Policy Committee Vice Chair Joseph Alhadeff (Oracle), who also chairs the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Digital Economy Commission, tapped Hoff to lead the ICC Delegation at the ECSG and DPS meetings. ICC enjoys special guest participatory status in the ECSG.

The ECSG meetings, August 15-16 and 19, will feature a workshop, “E-Commerce for Inclusion and Competitiveness.” The program will explore such issues as the use of new technologies to reach new customers who do not have access to financial services, the importance of policies to promote social inclusion through the use of e-commerce, and the importance of cloud computing and data services as tools in the digital economy. The ECSG Plenary, August 19, will include further development of an ECSG strategic plan, which will entail establishment of a Big Data Innovation Friends of the Chair (FOC) group and review of the 2008 APEC Digital Prosperity Checklist, among other issues.

DPS meetings, August 17-18, will continue to expand APEC economies’ understanding of and participation in the Cross-Border Privacy Rules system (CBPR). The DPS likely will revisit SOM I discussions of a communications strategy that more effectively explains the benefits of the CBPR system.

The CBPR system, endorsed by APEC leaders in 2011, is a voluntary, enforceable privacy code of conduct for data transfers by information controllers in the Asia-Pacific region, which implements the nine APEC Privacy Principles, requires third-party certification, and is enforceable by Privacy Enforcement Authorities of member economies. Perhaps most importantly, the CBPR system was conceived to preemptively discourage APEC economies from imposing unreasonable data flow restrictions on companies.

Reflecting the extent to which economic activity has become “digitalized,” APEC’s Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI), which meets August 19, 23, and 24, will continue its year-long exploration of the opportunities and challenges of digital trade. Medina will represent USCIB interests in this meeting.

The APEC Trade Ministers acknowledged in their May 18 statement that digital trade indeed facilitates cross-border trade, innovation and economic growth. The CTI’s second Trade Policy Dialogue, “A New Digital Trade Agenda,” to be held August 19, is aimed at fleshing this out further, with an eye toward securing the endorsement of APEC Leaders that digital trade constitutes a next-generation trade and investment issue. The August 19 Dialogue will tackle an agenda that includes: (1) examining research undertaken by the APEC Secretariat that may suggest the possible scope of future digital trade work in APEC; (2) considering the elements of an enabling environment for digital trade; (3) highlighting case studies that offer useful practices for advancing digital trade; (4) exploring potential challenges economies face as they navigate the ever-changing digital and Internet environment, and (5) zeroing in on how recent trade agreements have sought to address digital trade challenges.

SOM III will also include a Workshop on Advertising Self-Regulation. Through ICC participation at the workshop, USCIB lends support to the efforts to improve advertising standards throughout the APEC region, and to provide input to APEC economies on the use of regulation and self-regulation, including the ICC Marketing Code.

If you would like any further information on the above meetings or issues, please feel free to reach out to our team.

Customs: Megan Giblin, mgiblin@uscib.org
Chemicals: Helen Medina, hmedina@uscib.org
ICT and Data Privacy: Barbara Wanner, bwanner@uscib.org
Marketing and Advertising: Jonathan Huneke, jhuneke@uscib.org
APEC priorities: Elizabeth Kim, ekim@uscib.org

Business Urges China to Revise Cybersecurity Laws

Published on August 12, 2016

Cyber security concept with lockUSCIB joined a group of 45 business organizations from around the world warning the Chinese government that it would harm business operations and restrict trade if it implements proposed cybersecurity and insurance rules.

A letter the group sent to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on August 10 urges China to live up to its role as the host of this year’s G-20 leaders summit in September to promote the meeting’s goals of creating an “innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy.”

“[T]he current drafts, if implemented, would weaken security and separate China from the global digital economy,” USCIB and others stated in the letter. “To that end, we urge both The Law and The Provisions be revised to encourage international policy models that will support China’s development as a global hub for technology and services. This will assure a legacy of an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy from China’s G20 presidency.”

Read the letter.

What’s the Big Deal About Trade?

Published on August 11, 2016

AIADA_TradeThe 2016 presidential race has brought trade under heavy fire, with both candidates opposing the the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Jonathan Huneke, USCIB vice president of communications and public affairs was quoted in an article by the American International Automobile Dealers Association about current misconceptions about trade.

Read the article

Jonathan Huneke, the vice president of Communications at the U.S. Council for International Business, echoes that belief, noting that many Americans believe the economic climate is working against them. “Despite steady growth in jobs since 2010, wage stagnation in the United States has led many in the United States to believe that the odds in the current economy are stacked against them,” he notes.

According to Huneke, “American dealers have a lot at stake in keeping our trade policy fundamentally open and forward-leaning. There is huge demand and growth potential for innovative automobiles that meet the needs of U.S. consumers. Many of the most innovative automakers rely heavily on the American market, and on skilled American workers, to compete globally.”

Huneke agrees. “Trade agreements serve important diplomatic and geopolitical purposes in addition to their economic benefits, something that most Americans probably understand,” he says. “For example, the TPP and TTIP agreements can play an important role at a time when we are seeking to strengthen our Asian and European alliances in the face of threats like North Korea and ISIS.”

Read the article

Investment Facilitation – UNCTAD’s Useful Agenda For Pragmatism Over Politics

Published on August 11, 2016

By Peter Robinson, President and CEO, United States Council for International Business

investment_buildingsWe in the international business community are, frankly, not in the habit of finding inspiration in policy papers on the sometimes politically-charged topic of international investment from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), often seen as an organization more aligned with developing country governments. But a recent UNCTAD document, UNCTAD’s Global Action Menu for Investment Facilitation, discussed at last month’s UNCTAD’s Fourteenth Ministerial Conference and, in more detail, at its parallel World Investment Forum, is a valuable contribution to ongoing policy debates on international investment in developing countries, in the U.S., European Union and around the world.

Building off of the important model of the Trade Facilitation Agreement adopted at the World Trade Organization’s ministerial meeting in Bali in December 2013 and currently in the final stages of an extended ratification process among the WTO member countries, the UNCTAD proposal for an Investment Facilitation Action Agenda eschews broad and controversial policy issues related to international investment and, instead, focuses on concrete implementation and facilitation steps which governments, developed or developing, who chose to welcome Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can take to improve their competitiveness as an FDI destination. Out with politicized policy debates on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) and in with practical recommendations to help governments attract more and better foreign investments and to do it more quickly and efficiently.

Read the full column at Investment Policy Central.

Pro-Investment Policies Really Matter!

Published on August 4, 2016

International flagsThe OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is the premier international body where major foreign donors discuss development policy issues and coordinate their assistance programs.  The DAC just released its 2016 Annual Report “The Sustainable Development Goals as Business Opportunities,” with a special focus on the key role the private sector and foreign direct investment (FDI) can play in economic development of poorer nations.  The DAC report was unveiled last Month in New York during the United Nations’ High-Level Political Forum, where USCIB member companies and the International Chamber of Commerce played a lead role in highlighting the efforts business is making to support the UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs).

Shaun Donnelly, USCIB’s vice president for investment and financial services, was one of the outside commentators representing a wide range of views invited to offer opinion pieces sprinkled throughout the DAC report. Donnelly’s piece, “Pro-Investment Policies Really Matter,” argues that foreign direct investment can be a major contributor to economic development only if the recipient countries have the right pro-investment policies and a strong rule-of-law culture.

Read Donnelly’s Pro-Investment Policies Really Matter

Read the OECD DAC Report: The Sustainable Development Goals as Business Opportunities

Check out USCIB’s coverage of the report here.

 

Taking Stock of Business Conduct

Published on July 28, 2016

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are the most comprehensive international instrument for responsible business conduct and are supported by a unique implementation mechanism of National Contact Points (NCPs) established by adhering governments.

NCPs have been part of the MNE Guidelines since 1984. However it was the 2000 review that gave them a stronger role to deal with all matters relating to the Guidelines, including resolving issues related to non-observance. Since then, the number of complaints against companies has been on the rise.

To take stock of the experience over the last 15 years, the OECD has conducted an analysis of the functioning and performance of the NCP mechanism. The full report was published at the end of June on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the MNE Guidelines.

The Business of Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Published on July 22, 2016

Business for 2030 logo

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) bring the global community together in a bid to end poverty and hunger, fight climate change, and achieve sustainable economic growth. How can businesses play their part in this universal effort, and what’s in it for them?

USCIB Vice President for Labor Affairs, Corporate Responsibility and Governance Ariel Meyerstein was quoted in an article by Eco-Business about how the private sector is participating in the global development agenda.

One major initiative is Business for 2030, launched last September by the New York-based United States Council for International Business (USCIB). The programme showcases efforts by companies worldwide to contribute to the SDGs, and aims to foster partnerships between the public and private sectors to meet the goals.

Ariel Meyerstein, USCIB’s vice-president of labour affairs, corporate responsibility and governance, recalls that in 2014, the organisation recognised that the SDGs offered an unprecedented space for the private sector to participate in the global development agenda.

“This meant that businesses needed to quickly get up to speed on this vast, ambitious, and dizzying new framework,” he says. “Business for 2030 provides a public resource that helps translate existing and ongoing corporate activities into the new SDG language.”

This collection of concrete examples not only offers other businesses case studies on how to get involved, but also allows governments to identify good corporate initiatives in their own countries, which they can then collaborate with, explains Meyerstein.

The site today hosts more than 140 initiatives from 35 firms which are implemented across 150 countries.

Read the full article at Eco-Business