Inclusive growth among APEC economies

As part of APEC’s drive for inclusivity, the Second Senior Official’s Meeting (SOM2) and related meetings began with the 2018 APEC Study Centre’s consortium conference under the theme “Inclusive growth opportunities in an increasingly connected region”.

Chairman Dr Osbourne Sanida simplified this by saying it is about how more and more people can be engaged in the production of goods and services for economic growth.

Dr Sanida, when addressing the delegates, called for team work from all APEC economies as ‘no economy is an island’.

He said all economies are connected and through digital innovations, we can achieve inclusive economic growth in the region.

“When talking about connectivity we must note that Papua New Guinea, as with any other APEC economy, is not an island.

“We are all connected and as we talk about IT or ICT, there is inclusive connectivity in that it associates with different aspects as well so in the context of today’s session, the key point to note is the important role that innovation and technology plays in us achieving inclusive economic growth.” 

Dr Jeffrey Noro from the Papua New Guinea Department of Science and Technology mentioned similar points during his presentation on Development of Domestic Innovation Systems as Drivers for Economic Growth.

He added that with APEC discussions on the digital future, it will reap a lot of benefit and technological developments.

“Innovation has been a key driver for a lot of growth of the GDP of the economy but unfortunately in PNG for the last 40 years since independence, we have actually very limited policy on direction for investment into research and development of innovation as part of a national policy direction to promote growth,” Dr Noro stressed.

He reiterated that the intention is to learn from other economies who bring these ideas into PNG’s social cultural context because Papua New Guinea’s challenges are very different.

Author: 
Freddy Mou