Organizer: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute
Type/Location: Virtual
Description:
Against the backdrop of APEC 2026, hosted by China, the webinar will provide an overview of recent economic and trade developments in the Asia-Pacific region. It will examine key challenges and opportunities facing the region, including trends in trade, investment, growth prospects, and other issues shaping regional economic integration and cooperation. Headwinds from higher energy and freight costs, weather-related disruptions, geopolitical tensions and trade policy uncertainty are clouding growth prospects. The webinar will also examine APEC’s progress in advancing connectivity over the past decade through the APEC Connectivity Blueprint (2015–2025). The presentation will assess progress across the three pillars of physical, institutional, and people-to-people connectivity, discuss current and emerging challenges, and identify priorities for regional connectivity cooperation in the years ahead.
About the Speakers:
Carlos Kuriyama is Director of the Policy Support Unit (PSU) at the APEC Secretariat, where he has worked extensively on trade and investment liberalization, regulatory and structural reform issues across the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to joining the APEC Secretariat, Carlos was a government official at Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism. He served as Chief Negotiator for the Peru–China Free Trade Agreement negotiations, General Coordinator for the Peru–Singapore Free Trade Agreement negotiations. He holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Universidad del Pacífico.
Akhmad Bayhaqi is a Senior Analyst at the Policy Support Unit. His research areas include trade and investment facilitation, connectivity, global supply chains, and infrastructure investment. Prior to joining the APEC Secretariat, Mr Bayhaqi was a Research Officer with the Centre for Strategic and Policy Studies in Brunei Darussalam, where he oversaw research on education and social policy issues. Mr Bayhaqi obtained his PhD in Southeast Asian Studies and a Master in Public Policy from the National University of Singapore.
Registration:
To attend the event virtually, please register here.