Background
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, is
an inter-government grouping for facilitating economic growth, cooperation, trade
and investment in the Asia-Pacific region .
Unlike the WTO or other multilateral trade bodies,
APEC has no treaty obligations required of its participants. Decisions
made within APEC are reached by consensus and commitments are
undertaken on a voluntary basis.
As part of this, the
APEC Architect Framework has been
created. The aim is to facilitate the mobility of architects providing
architectural services throughout the APEC region.
While not well known in
New Zealand, in
a number of member economies being an APEC Architect carries significant
prestige.
New Zealand
Registered Architects who are principals of architectural practices that do
business around the
Pacific Rim should
seriously consider becoming APEC Architects.
Furthermore, within the APEC Architect framework participating economies are able to negotiate bilateral arrangements which fast track registration for APEC Architects wishing to be registered architects in other APEC economies. New Zealand has such an arrangement with Japan.
Criteria
An APEC Architect is a
person who is registered, licensed or otherwise professionally recognized as an
architect in a participating economy, and whose name is enrolled on a section
of the APEC Architect Register maintained by that economy.
For information on what is required to be an APEC Architect go here.
Members
The following economies are members:
-
Australia
-
Canada
-
People’s Republic of
China
-
Hong Kong
-
Japan
-
Republic
of
Korea
-
Malaysia
-
Mexico
-
New
Zealand
-
Republic
of
Philippines
-
Singapore
-
Chinese
Taipei
-
Thailand
-
United
States of America
.
Japan New Zealand bilateral
On 14 July 2009, New Zealand signed
a APEC Architect Momorandum of Cooperation with Japan. This means New Zealand APEC Architects
are entitled to registration in Japan subject only to a test that
examines their knowledge of aspects of the architectural process in
Japan that are exclusive to that economy. The same applies to Japanese
APEC architects wishing to be registered in New Zealand.
For more information on the Japan New Zealand APEC Architect registration arrangement, go here.
Administration
In each economy an APEC
Architect Monitoring Committee administers the procedures for registration in
that economy. To contact the New Zealand Committee email info@nzrab.org.nz or call 04 471 1336.
To view the New Zealand APEC Architect Register go here.
For the application
form to be a New Zealand APEC Architect, go here.
Currently the secretariat for the APEC Architect Project
as a whole is being provided by the Philippines. For more information
on this go here
.