Gold Coast Declaration

1. recognised that, as the economic interdependence among APEC economies deepens, telecommunications and information infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region has a critical role to play in strengthening market linkages and enhancing trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation.
2. encouraged member economies to intensify technical and development cooperation, and
3. affirmed cooperative efforts among APEC economies to develop an Asia-Pacific Information Infrastructure (APII) on the basis of
4. the five objectives and ten principles adopted by Ministers responsible for the telecommunications and information industry at Seoul, Korea, in May 1995 (Annex 1) ;

reaffirming the Bogor Declaration in which APEC Economic Leaders:

1. agreed to strengthen the multilateral trading system, enhance trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation, intensify development cooperation, and to achieve free and open trade and investment by industralised economies by no later than the year 2010 and developing economies by no later than the year 2020,
2. emphasised the important of development cooperation in such areas as science and technology, including transfers of technology, as a tool to attain sustainable growth and equitable development of APEC economies, and
   noted the critical role of the infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region, including telecommunications and information, in accomplishing this goal;

having reviewed the activities undertaken to implement

1. the telecommunications and information elements of the Osaka Action Agenda, and
2. the Action Plan endorsed by Ministers at the Ministerial Meeting on Telecommunications and Information Industry in Seoul in May 1995;

welcoming the achievement of progress in a broad range of collective actions and joint activities for trade and investment liberalisation and for economic and technical cooperation;

1. renewing our commitment, as APEC Ministers responsible for the telecommunications and information industry, to implement the five objectives and ten principles of the APII, and to support the development of the APII through cooperative activities, including those recommended by the APEC Telecommunications Working Group (TEL WG) and the APII Test-bed Forum;

1. Ministers note that the Program for Action for the telecommunications and information sector will contribute to the Action Plan to be considered at the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting to be held at Subic Bay, the Philippines in November 1996.
2. Ministers commit themselves to support continued efforts to achieve the Bogor objectives of trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation, and economic and technical cooperation, by or before the Bogor Declaration Liberalisation timetable, and consistent with the Osaka Action Agenda.
3. Ministers direct the TEL WG to continue, in accordance with the Leaders' directions given at Bogor and Osaka, and with the ten APII principles agreed at the Ministerial Meeting in Seoul, to refine and implement plans for the telecommunications and information sector, setting steps and milestones with target dates for concrete outcomes to improve the telecommunications and information infrastructure in the region, and to facilitate effective cooperation, free trade and investment and sustainable development of the region.
4. Ministers, noting the importance of technical and development cooperation as a tool to achieve the objectives of the Bogor Declaration and Osaka Action Agenda on the liberalisation and development of the APII, encourage developed economies to emphasise their roles in the TEL WG on development cooperation as well as human resource development programs in order to enhance the level of development among APEC economies in the area of telecommunications.
5. Ministers welcome the growing range of cooperative activities and pilot projects, including those listed in Annex 3, toward the development of the APII, and encourage the TEL WG to expedite their implementation. Ministers direct the TEL WG to continue to identify further cooperative activities in support of its work program objectives to achieve wider access to APII applications, exploring opportunities to promote collaborative multi-economy projects such as
• pilot administrative information networks;
• new services for rural development;
• test-beds for interconnection and interoperability;
• information sharing and data base development;
• telemedicine, distance education and multimedia communications;
• policy dialogues on the APII between developed and developing member economies; and
• studies of the social and economic implications of the information society. 
  
6. Ministers endorse the following collective actions for trade and investment liberalisation in the sector developed by the TEL WG on the basis of instructions given by Ministers in 1995, in the Seoul Action Plan:
• conformance, where appropriate, with the APEC Guidelines for Trade in International Value-Added Network Services (IVANS) by 1998;
• general conformance, where appropriate, with APEC guidelines for harmonisation of equipment certification;
• harmonisation of administrative procedures governing certification of customer telecommunications equipment;
• development and initial implementation, on an elective basis, of a model mutual recognition arrangement for conformity assessment by the end of 1997;
• establishment of a task group to develop a plan, including two seminars in 1997, for the development and application of a model mutual recognition arrangement;
• progressive reduction of restrictions on market access for telecommunications services;
• progressive provision for non-discriminatory treatment of all telecommunications network and service providers;
• encouragement of business/private sector investment and participation in the provision of telecommunications services;
  formation of a study group on transparent funding of universal delivery of basic telecommunications services under conditions of liberalised markets;
• agreeing that domestic and commercial consumers of telecommunications services should enjoy significant cost reductions which result from liberalisation, establishment of a task group to develop an appropriate set of indicators to measure the benefits of liberalisation to users, and to make a proposal to the 15th TEL WG on use of such indicators in TEL WG work;
• recognising that economies have not endorsed any particular item and are not committed to any particular item, recommendation of the Comprehensive Reference List of Actions, compiled from the suggestions of TEL WG members and reflecting, in part, Regulatory Principles developed in World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, as a resource paper for economies to consider in developing their Individual Action Plans and individual sectoral program for liberalisation;
• establishment of a task group to develop a formal plan and proposal for a seminar on "Liberalisation Effects in Telecommunications" to assist telecommunications officials and industry to assess the legal and commercial implications of liberalisation for international telecommunications trade; to identify common strategies to ensure a flourishing telecommunications industry throughout the APEC region; and to share experience in planning and implementing the transition towards a liberalised telecommunications environment; and
• further development of collective actions plans for liberalisation of the telecommunications and information sector.
  
7. Ministers direct the TEL WG to continue its efforts to promote policy and regulatory measures for liberalisation of trade and investment in the telecommunications and information sector, to consider plans as soon as practicable for collective actions to liberalise the telecommunications and information sector, for the removal of technical and administrative barriers to market access, the promotion of international standards, the development of domestic and global markets for networks, services and applications, and the promotion of equitable and non-discriminatory access arrangements for carriers and for providers of telecommunications and information services.
8. Ministers direct the TEL WG to continue to facilitate business in the region through
• publishing regular reports on the state of the telecommunications regulatory environment in each APEC economy in order to improve business/private sector access to related policies, regulations and other information;
• promoting electronic commerce through seminars, studies on electronic data interchange application development, and experiments on the interoperability and suitability for electronic commerce of various networks;
• promoting the use of Internet for electronic commerce;
• adopting electronic communications as the preferred means of doing business amongst APEC economies;
• promoting business/private sector investment in telecommunications and information infrastructure through the identification of the necessary and favourable investment environment;
• exploring initiatives for making government public information more widely available via electronic means, and for the development of government use of telecommunications as a means of encouraging business use; and
• strengthening the partnership with the business/private sector by continuing further business/private sector involvement in the TEL WG meetings and work program.
9. Ministers direct the TEL WG to
• promote universal access to telecommunications services, at an efficient cost level, through the sharing of information and experience of the policy, regulatory and commercial strategies that have proven successful in the region, with a view to maximising the social and economic benefits to users in each economy;
• further increase cooperation in infrastructure activities between APEC and other international institutions and fora to facilitate the modernisation of telecommunications and information infrastructure in all economies, reducing the infrastructure gap between developed and developing economies;
• promote cooperation in the areas of human resource development, joint research and development as well as a higher level of technology transfer among member economies; and
  increase cooperation to identify the needs of the information sector based on the intrinsic link between content and promotion of the APII and its applications, through development of appropriate fora within the TEL WG structure for information exchange and policy recommendation development.
  
10. To reduce disparities between developed and developing economies within the region, Ministers direct the TEL WG to continue to promote human resources development and related capabilities through projects and seminars in such areas as
• improvement of strategic planning and analysis of APII implementations;
• technology evaluation;
• demand forecasting;
• regulatory reform and telecommunications administration in economies in transition for liberalisation;
• privatisation and competition in telecommunications and information industries;
• implementation of the APEC TEL WG distance learning pilot project;
• considering the implementation of the Model Vocational Education and Training Framework; and
• developing further skills standards in telecommunications.
11. Ministers request the TEL WG to continue to examine ways to increase participation and cooperation between the TEL WG and other existing international institutions and programs on standards and existing technology cooperation projects, and to encourage support for business/private sector participation and investment in the development of information infrastructure with
• international financial institutions such as the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the InterAmerican Development Bank; and
• APT, ITU, OECD, WTO and G7 joint pilot projects, such as cooperation on test-bed interconnection, information sharing, broadband trials, standardisation and training of telecommunication technologies, global inventory, electronic commerce, small and medium enterprises business facilitation, health and education projects.
  
12. In the spirit of the Bogor and Osaka Leaders' Statements that fully support APEC members' contributions to the work of the WTO, and recognising the importance of the multilateral trading system, Ministers support the broadest possible participation in the WTO Group on Basic Telecommunications by all WTO APEC member economies, and the submission of new or improved offers prior to the meeting of Trade Ministers in Singapore in December 1996, to facilitate a successful conclusion to these negotiations by February 1997.