MEMBER ECONOMY - The United States

2015/SMEWG40/045 Agenda Item: 16.8 The United States reported that in just three years, the APEC SME Business Ethics Initiative supported the development of 19 new industry codes across nine economies in the healthcare sector where they previously did not exist, expanded high standard APEC principles to more than 14,000 companies, of which over 8,000 are SMEs.

2014/SMEWG39/042 Agenda Item: 16.1 The Business Ethics for APEC SMEs initiative was in its fifth year, served as one of the largest and most successful public – private partnership efforts of the SME Working Group. Initially focused on the medical device, biopharmaceutical and construction sectors, the initiative has supported the development of new codes of ethics across 10 APEC economies where they previously did not exist. High standard APEC principles of codes was extended to nearly 1,500 additional SMEs over the previous two years.

2014/SMEWG39/043 Agenda Item: 16.1 It was proposed by the United States in which stakeholders jointly agreed to specific goals and actions, including a target to double the number of industry associations that have adopted or achieved formal progress toward a code of ethics between 2012 and 2015. The Nanjing Declaration was subsequently endorsed by APEC SME Ministers and APEC Ministers in 2014.

An one‐day forum focused on identifying the barriers to trade in health care products was held on June 8, 2015 in Atlanta, the United States. In the forum, public and private sector participants discussed the barriers to trade in the health care sector that significantly hinders access to safe and effective medical products. Speakers from a range of government agencies and industry representatives highlighted experiences exporting and importing in the health care sector, and emphasized that many of these barriers disproportionately impact SMEs.