Relevance – Region: As one of the most socially vulnerable groups, seafarers from 21 APEC economies, are not only an indispensable source of human capital for the global maritime industry, covering at least 56% of the world’s seafaring population (BIMCO, 2015), but also pivotal in providing support to their economies as a major industrial pillar, specifically in developing economies where the development of skills and enhancement of labor mobility of human resources is essential in creating sustainable and inclusive regional growth. APEC SEN has been established under TPTWG since 2019 for supporting seafarers’ career lifecycles ranging from maritime education and training, better welfares, and to recruitment, career development and job transition. The activities of APEC SEN includes, but are not limited to, carrying out seafarers-related projects that promote experience sharing, policy dialogue, capacity building and practical cooperation, which directly contribute to the goals and priorities of APEC, and primarily benefit developing economies.

In terms of seafarers’ cross labor mobility across APEC region, the lack of capacity building opportunities has been pointed out as one of the most critical challenges to tackle, not only for seafarers wishing to join an international shipping market that enables their decent standard of living, but also for training institutions, shipping industry, and government sectors that are in need of the up-to-date information on employment trends and policy changes in the global shipping market by the means of research data, conferences, and policy dialogues. 

In this regard, the objective of this project is to enhance seafarers’ cross-border labor mobility by linking highly educated, well-qualified, and efficient maritime workforce across APEC region to global shipping industry. This will be attained by three systematic steps:  1) Research 2) The Establishment of APEC SEN Digital Platform for Cross-Border Labor Mobility of Seafarer 3) APEC SEN Capacity Building Conference on Maximizing Cross-Border Labor Mobility of Seafarers for the Digital Age (Virtual). The targets of the project are not only seafarers who are seeking a wide range of information on recruitment, career development and job transition in a more direct and engaging manner, but for other seafarers related bodies such as government, training institutions, and shipping companies who have responsibility of promoting seafarers’ labor mobility in terms of policy support, education, and employment, respectively. By the provision of capacity building and practical cooperation opportunities through the three stages mentioned above, in addition, the successful implementation of this project is highly expected to provide a multi-faceted economic and social benefit not only to major seafarer supplying economies (e.g. China; Indonesia; Malaysia; the Philippines; and Viet Nam) but also to the economies (e.g. Hong Kong China; China; Japan; Republic of Korea; and Singapore) that demand a steady supply of well-qualified seafaring manpower. 

The APEC Seafarers Excellence Network (APEC SEN) has been established with the unanimous support of APEC member economies at the 47th TPTWG Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. This project has been garnered support through a series of APEC SEN meetings since 2019, and the concept note was proposed to APEC by Republic of Korea and nine economies. APEC SEN Secretariat provides the services necessary for the coordination and facilitation of project. 

The relationships between APEC SEN and the project in terms of contents, audiences, and operational linkages are as follows: 

Contents: the capacity building on enhancing labor mobility for APEC seafarers

Audience: seafarers, shipping companies, and seafarers policy departments of maritime administrations

Operational linkage: conduct of research on increasing seafarers’ cross-labor mobility in APEC region, and the provision of webinar based on the research results. 

Relevance – Eligibility and Fund Priorities: This project is exactly aligned with the Innovative Development, Economic Reform and Growth Fund, which has been clearly identified in the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting (AELM) Annex C of the 2014 Leaders’ Declaration for generating the promotion of practical cooperation, capacity building, policy dialogue and experience sharing in the areas of seafarers’ labor mobility, with the specific following rationales: 

a)  Paragraph 9) This project will enable an open and cooperative digital cross-border job-seeking environment across APEC region for one of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged career group, or seafarers, working in frequent isolation, remote and harsh sea environments far from their homes. Among seafarers, the most targeted groups of this project will be youth and women wishing to start their career path at sea. In this perspective, research on seafarers’ labor mobility issues, the development of the digital platform for promoting their job entry, capacity building conference with job fair to exchange a dialogue on existing barriers and set the future directions of collaboration under the direct engagements of owners’ side, academia, and maritime administrations will be highly inevitable as a supporting tool of encouraging seafarers’ career entry and maintaining their sustainable growth. 

b) Paragraph 10) This project is highly oriented toward a more integrated, sustainable, inclusive and mutually favorable partnership (e.g. maritime administrations, shipping companies, crewing management private companies, and academia) through ocean-related cooperation across the Asia-Pacific region. Considering the fact that seafarers are at the core of marine human resources and the major driving force of the industry, the cooperation for their labor mobility is one of the most critical areas where mutual cooperation should be organized. As emphasized in the Blue Economy, actions to promote connectivity and communication among APEC members to facilitate the flow of goods, services, trade and investment is the key objective of this project through the use of cross labor mobility, digital technology and create sustainable people-to-people linkages across the APEC region. 

c)  Paragraph 21) As specified earlier, this is highly aligned with the pillar of inclusive support, which aims to strengthen cooperation on employment of seafarers, specifically putting its focuses on women and youths’ economic participation. By the active utilization of this digital platform will ultimately support the APEC Action Plan for Promoting Quality Employment and Strengthening People-to-People Connectivity through Human Resources (2015-2018), along the lines with the innovative development. 

Also aligned to the IERG Sub-Fund, this project will implement the APEC Initiative of Cooperation to Promote Internet Economy in the development of the digital structure set forth through the ad Hoc Steering Group created in 2017, Da Nang, Viet Nam. This project intends to prioritize specifically on 3 out of 11 focus areas in the roadmap: 

a)  N.2 Promotion of Interoperability) The implementation of this project will enable importance of interoperability in the internet and the Digital Economy. The applications on the digital platform will be used by all stakeholders (e.g. Government administrations, institutions, shipowners, seafarers) for job creation, educational development, and stakeholder input as defined through user needs. In turn, access via digital platform will increase social development, while providing local individuals with access to greater economies of scale and scope, through an open interconnected Internet on a non-discriminatory basis.

b) N.6 Promoting innovation and adoption of enabling technologies and services) This project will augment the enabling of digital technologies by facilitating research and development of job connecting platform, by defining stakeholders and users (e.g. Government administrations, institutions, shipowners, seafarers)  for the purposes of job creation and recruitment. 

c) N.10 Enhancing Inclusiveness of Internet and Digital Economy) This project aims to contribute to the development of ICT to provide inclusiveness laid out in the digital roadmap and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This project seeks to address the APEC region to ensure that no one is left behind both in terms of social and geographic perspectives in the field of seafarers’ job seeking and recruitment pathways. The use of mobile platforms will help to bridge the digital divide between and within economies, regions and groups while creating a space for capacity building in maritime education and training required for seafarers career building. By encouraging the use of this digital platform with the aims of providing better inclusion of ‘middle income trap earners’ specifically in terms of seafarers within APEC member economies, this will be expected to leverage the Internet and Digital Economy to improve seafarers’ living standards and unleash their potential through effective use of ICTs, which will ultimately contribute in inclusive human resource development in the APEC region. 

Last but not least, this also meets the Eligibility Criteria for Sub-Fund on IERG as follows: 

a)  Overcoming the Middle-income Trap) This project intends to address the priority on the ‘middle income trap’ under the APEC New Strategy for Structural Reform (ANSSR) and the report on Advancing the APEC Structural Reform Agenda Beyond 2015 to address the priority under the IERG Sub-Fund. The terminology ‘middle income trap’ was linked to the hypothesis that a substantial deceleration of growth is experienced once a certain or ‘middle’ income level is reached. To combat and address this priority, this project through the steady supply of highly qualified seafarers will be able to have easy, and open access to quality careers at sea via digital platform and create strong economic growth and sustainability which are highly indicative of addressing the middle income trap while addressing 3 of the 5 pillars of ANSSR on: 1) Promoting more open, well-functioning, transparent, and competitive markets; 2) Promoting labor market opportunities, training, and education; and 3) Promoting sustained SME development and enhanced opportunities for women and vulnerable populations.

b) Implementing APEC initiatives on Blue Economy Cooperation) This project is fully aligned with the Xiamen Declaration on the Blue Economy based on the Fourth APEC Ocean-Related Ministerial Meeting towards New Partnership through Ocean Cooperation in the Asia Pacific Region. This project reaffirm our strong support to take actions to promote connectivity and communication among APEC members to facilitate the flow of goods, services, trade and investment revolving around the maritime industry, recognizing seafarers as the key players of the global marine transaction, specifically in terms of job creation and recruitment. 

Relevance – Capacity Building: Under the theme of Maximizing APEC SEN Cross-Border Labor Mobility of Seafarers for the Digital Age, this project will meet the capacity building goal of APEC effectively in both ways to: strengthen the knowledge, abilities, skills and behaviour of individuals directly and indirectly engaged in crewing industry (e.g. seafarers, ship owners, ship management companies, and crewing agencies) and further improving institutional structures and processes in terms of enhancing seafarers’ employability by identifying the gaps of competencies required by users (e.g. shipping industry) and providers (academia and maritime administrations). In this perspective, this project is expected to make a significant contribution to all APEC member economies, specifically for the participants targeted in this project as follows: 

·   Seafarers:

-  Will identify current and future recruitment trends of international shipping markets;

-  Explore career opportunities from international shipping companies from around the APEC region

-  Maximize potential to optimize career path with credentials in the job market

· Ship owners, ship management companies, and crewing agencies

-Maximize well qualified seafarers from a pool of credentialed applicants in the APEC region;

- Develop a systemized employment program of well-qualified seafarers on a continual and consistent basis;

-  Consistently provide input of emerging trends, and needs through a centralized platform;

·  Academia

- Identification of gaps between industrial expectations (e.g. ship owners, and crewing agencies), and the graduates of academia (e.g. maritime universities, and training institutions)

-  The opportunity of developing and improving maritime education and training programs in order to meet demands of industry, and therefore, increase employability of their graduates;

-  Enhanced connectivity between academia and industry by direct contact

·   Maritime administrations

-   Policy dialogue exchange on the seafarers’ job entry into the global shipping market, specifically for those economies where seafarers are at the major driving forces of the regional economic growth and their joining international market considered as pivotal;