WKU attends ABAC meeting

From November 4 to 6, the fourth meeting of APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) of 2017 was held in Da Nang, Vietnam. Philip Connelly, executive vice chancellor of WKU and Dr. Cao Jiang, Dean of Business School were invited to attended and address at the meeting.

ABAC is one of the three most important mechanisms of APEC meetings. Present at the meeting were ABAC representatives from 21 economies including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore and enterprise leaders from APEC members, who discussed financial and economic development, regional economy integration, sustainable economic development, development of small- and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups in Asia-Pacific regions. The meeting is an important prelude to 2017 APEC summit.

During the meeting, Philip Connelly delivered a speech at the APEC CBET Network Meeting, giving a detailed introduction of WKU and the progress of online training on cross-border E-commerce provided under joint efforts of WKU and ABAC China to the present representatives of ABAC economies, entrepreneurs and authorities of other trades.

Additionally, the group represented by Philip Connelly introduced the history and progress of WKU to representatives of ABAC economies, enterprise leaders and local high-ranking government officials at the reception held by the host.

From December 2016, WKU officially became an academic partner for the online training platform of APEC CBET Network, with Dr. Cao Jiang acting as the academic leader and providing the course system for the platform periodically. The training course system of the platform is developed through cooperation of WKU, APEC CBET Network and ABAC, including such teaching content as cross-border E-commerce ecosystem, E-commerce operational skills, cross-border supply chain, Internet finance, integrity and security.

In 2014 SME Ministerial Meeting, APEC CBET was highly recognized by the ministers, who jointly expressed their wish to promote the localization of APEC CBET with common efforts. At present, APEC CBET has launched online training platform, where industrial experts will record videos, interpreting the key links of industrial chain, and upload videos to the website for worldwide broadcasting.

The platform established together with ABAC china will help improving the international influence of WKU’s business majors, enabling students to directly learn the e-commerce development situation in the Asia-Pacific Region, features of stages and development difficulties. Next, WKU will deepen the cooperation with ABAC China to create APEC CBET cross-border e-commerce training platform online, through which we will seek for more cooperation opportunities and resources.