Young Entrepreneur Recommendations for APEC SME Ministers
Our objective is to promote a culture of entrepreneurial spirit, economic growth, and to promote greater cross-cultural understanding among youth to meet the needs of a globally competitive economy.
We encourage APEC members to consider youth to be under 35 years of age.
We, after consideration, propose:
1. To increase awareness and provide role models for future entrepreneurs, create an APEC Awareness Campaign directed at youth, including national brochures telling about APEC and giving contact points for further information about each member.
2. To initiate company databases in all APEC countries with standard data. From this database, will be found candidates to launch an annual "Young Entrepreneur APEC business award." To be eligible, entrepreneurs have to conduct trade with at least one other APEC member economy. Profiles of the experiences, challenges, and lessons learned by each of the "business award" candidates would be made available to help other entrepreneurs learn from their experiences, as a form of broadly available mentoring.
3. Recognizing the previous Manila recommendation regarding the creation of a Trade and Investment Data database, and in the interest of facilitating good pre-market entry business planning, we urge all APEC members to provide accessible one-stop information centres with market information of many sorts, in "web sites," walk-in centres or APEC office, telephone contact point, depending on the country.
4. To increase understanding and trade between culturally diverse APEC member states, by creating a "Cultural Educational Program" that helps entrepreneurs of all ages understand more about the business and cultural practices of each other country. This information will be free and promoted through the APEC Awareness campaign. This information could take the form of reports written by members and circulated to each other for translation and distribution.
5. To help young entrepreneurs finance new APEC trade ventures, by providing a government/private sector backed guaranteed loan program for young entrepreneurs conducting trade between APEC members.
6. To provide a means for on-going involvement of youth in APEC decision making, we propose one young entrepreneur representative at the APEC Business Advisory Council and a permanent Working Group on Youth Business Issues composed of young entrepreneurs. The initial group, composed of the 1997 delegates to the Young Entrepreneurs Seminar, will communicate through the Canadian Industry Canada internet site Strategis in "Contact! The Canadian Management Network."
7. To continue APEC Young Entrepreneur Seminar at all future APEC SME meetings.
© 1997 - TG Magazine / The Students Commission
© 1997 le magazine TG / la Commission des Ètudiants