Philippines hosts the APEC
conference on biosafety

THE Philippines, through the Department of Agriculture, will host a conference on biosafety among Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) on January 16 to 18, 2006 at the Makati Sangrila Hotel in Makati City.

The Philippines, is hosting the event together with APEC and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The three-day conference will focus on exploring policy options for biosafety regulation in the APEC region and is expected to draw close to a hundred delegates from the APEC member-economies’ including government regulators, policy makers and experts in the areas of agriculture, trade, environment, economics and foreign affairs.

In the conference, participating APEC-member countries will discuss comparison of economies obligations under the WTO and the Cartagena Protocol; impact of regulation on trade flow in the APEC region; differing impacts and implications for importing and exporting countries; biosafety regulation and socioeconomic considerations; regional initiatives for biosafety compliance; impact of biosafety regulation in public/private research in agricultural biotechnology; and economy experiences on biosafety policy development and implementation.

Conference organizers aim to provide representatives of APEC economies with clearer understanding of the breadth of sectoral considerations embedded in biosafety policy and better understanding of the implications and options for agricultural biotechnology regulation in different sectors of government.In the longer term, APEC economies hopes to successfully meet the requirements of international agreements on biosafety, thus strengthening their agricultural biotechnology sectors.