17-18 February 2014 (Ningbo, CHINA)
APEC is the premier Asia-Pacific economic forum whose primary goal is to support sustainable economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region, championing free and open trade and investment, promoting and accelerating regional economic integration, encouraging economic and technical cooperation, enhancing human security, and facilitating a favorable and sustainable business environment.
The EPWG was first established as APEC's Task Force for Emergency Preparedness (TFEP) by APEC Senior Officials in 2005 and mandated to coordinate and facilitate emergency and disaster preparedness within APEC. In 2009 APEC Leaders reaffirmed the importance of enhancing human security and reducing the threat of disruptions to business and trade in the Asia-Pacific region. Recognizing the importance of its work, in 2010 the TFEP was upgraded in status to a working group. Now the EPWG continues to play a constructive role in enabling the region to better prepare for and respond to emergencies and disasters by helping to reduce the risk of disasters and building business and community resilience. By sharing expertise and collaborating on emergency preparedness issues, APEC members strengthen their capacity to mitigate emergencies and disasters. In recent years, the global economic damage caused by the Great East-Japan Earthquake and Thai flood in 2011 urged APEC EPWG to disseminate the business continuity plan (BCP) especially among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The 6th EPWG was held on 17 - 18 Feb in Ningbo, and the Executive Director of ADRC participated in the meeting.
Funded by APEC, The ADRC has researched the BCPs among small and middle-sized enterprises and edited the guidebook on BCP considering the rapid economic growth in Asia region.
At the beginning of the meeting, considering past contribution to our activities to APEC EPWG, Executive Director of the ADRC was elected as co-chairman of EPWG. Then the co-chair and member economies reported the activities in 2013 and proposed the work plan of 2014, which encourages to continue the dissemination of BCM among SMEs and to enhance the resilience of supply-chain, and to launch the new project titled "The Workshop of a Space-and-ICT based disaster management system to enhance supply-chain resilience and BCP" by the Government of Japan.
(2014/02/25 13:00)