The outputs of this project are as follows:

i.       Organisation of a two-day workshop to be held in Penang in August 2020 on the side line of SOM 3, prior to Economic Committee (EC) Meeting. In the first day, there will be presentations by the speakers to aforesaid tech-firms, to be divided into two segments for established and upcoming firms, on the topic of digital market mechanism. The purpose of these sessions is to shed light of on the technical and economical mechanisms that involve in digital economy.   In the afternoon session, the panellists will present the overview of the regulatory framework on competition to complement the participant understanding on the gap, issues and challenges on the competitiveness of the digital economy. The second day of the workshop furthermore will enhance participant understanding on topic of consumer welfare in a digital economy that seems to be received little attention in previous workshop. The session aims to coin the issues and challenges on consumer welfare in a digital economy in respect to the price, product quality, among others. In the evening session, a roundtable discussion will be conducted to explore the collaboration areas among APEC economies to gauge with the issues and challenges in the digital economy in order to spur competitiveness and reducing gap in APEC region. The detail of the agenda is shown in Draft Agenda enclosed with this proposal.

ii.       Questionnaires will also be given to the participants in this workshop to gather information and insight on the issues and challenges facing by their respective economies.

iii.       A well-structured final project report of approximately 20-30 pages comprises of cover page, table of contents, introduction and issue-based summaries of presentation, conclusion and recommendations. The report will also contains the results attained from the evaluation form and the matrix of inputs with sections on, amongst others, gender participations, relevance, effectiveness, outcomes and recommendations to improve competition policy and law enforcement framework in the APEC region will be developed and thereafter submitted and disseminated to the EC and other relevant stakeholders within the proposed time frame.

iv. The feedback on the questionnaires will be presented in the report in view to their geographical economies in order to address the diversity and geographical limitation to avoid generalization of the recommendations. The expected recommendations that will be drawn from this project consists of two main elements such as policy recommendation in respect to the areas of cooperation between developing and developed economies to enhance the spill over effect of technological innovation as well as the guidelines on the competition assessment to facilitate the policy makers and competition authorities of APEC region.

Outcomes: The expected outcomes can be divided into three phases which are short, middle and long terms:

i.  Short term (0-2 years):

· Enhance participants’ practical understanding on how the digital firms operate in the digital market and the mechanism that has been utilised to propel their businesses, including their key features;

· Enhance participants’ awareness on the need to focus on the development and issues surrounding the digital market, particularly in relation to competition policy and enforcement framework; and

· Identify and provide possible recommendations to improve competition policy and enforcement framework in relation to digital economy that may be beneficial to Malaysia and other APEC economies.

ii.  Middle term (2-5 years):

·  Bridging the gap between the competition authorities’ knowledge and application in the digital market mechanism in the real world;

·   To develop common understanding on the way forward amongst the competition authorities in dealing with competition issues in the digital market in order to improve competition enforcement and policy framework;

·   Competition regulators in the APEC region could possibly establish their own independent digital team that specialises in the digital market environment; and

·   Digital market players are empowered to be self-regulating in terms of making their policies, operations and practices in line with competition law framework in the APEC region.

iii.  Long term (5-10):

· To establish a unified, if not common approach on tackling competition issues surrounding the digital economy for a consistent, if not predictable outcome in handling competition issues amongst the competition authorities in the APEC region; and

·  To establish l cooperation / collaboration between developing and developed APEC economies in dealing with issues in the digital economy in the APEC region.

Beneficiaries: The main beneficiary of this project is competition authorities who are responsible to regulate competition law and consumer protection law in any of the 21 APEC economies. It is important to have mid-level to high-level competition authorities with more than 10 years working experience and expertise in the development of competition policy as well as enforcement. The emphasis of these criteria lies upon the wide knowledge and experience capacities will enable the competition authorities to provide analytical and comprehensive views on the competition issues and challenges in digital economy. In addition, they are also able to provide a comprehensive insight in the exploration of the potential solutions of the issues and challenges identified. This workshop seeks the competition authorities to disseminate the new knowledge and experience gathered from this workshop in their respective economies and become a paradigm change especially when crafting the competition policy and framework with regards to digital economy.  This workshop strongly encourages participation from women competition authorities in APEC economies. From this workshop, the competition authorities particularly from developing member economies will benefits in respect to knowledge on ways to tackle possible issues that could arise in the future in their respective jurisdictions.

Aside from CPLG 02 2018 project that emphasis on competition authorities as their main participants, this project will extend the invitation to other equally important government stakeholders such as policy makers, public officials and regulators from other relevant ministries and agencies in the APEC region as well as the private sector such as digital market players in APEC economies. They will have an opportunity to learn about digital market mechanism and exchanging ideas and insight on possible cross-cutting issues. The comprehensive views from public and private stakeholders are crucial in this project in order to deliver the innovative recommendations to the issues and challenges identified.