APEC ENGINEER REGISTER, CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD TO

PROMOTE MOBILITY OF ENGINEERING SERVICES

By
Ir. Dr. Gue See Sew
Past Chair, APEC Engineer Coordinating Committee
Past Head Commissioner, ASEAN Engineers Register
Past President, The Institution of Engineers Malaysia

1 BACKGROUND

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) is the Government consultative
organisation of the 21 countries and regions (termed economies) in Asia and on the
Pacific Ocean rim. The economies are 1) Canada, 2) USA, 3) Mexico, 4) Peru, 5)
Chile, 6) Russia, 7) Republic of Korea, 8) China, 9) Japan, 10) Chinese Taipei, 11)
Hong Kong, China 12) Vietnam, 13) Thailand 14) The Philippines 15) Malaysia, 16)
Singapore, 17) Brunei, 18) Indonesia, 19) Papua New Guinea 20) Australia, and 21)
New Zealand.

The APEC leaders’ meeting in 1995 at Osaka agreed to the need of facilitating the
mobility of qualified person among the member economies. Consistent with the Osaka
Action Agenda, the meeting of 18 member economies of APEC Human Resources
Development Ministers (HRD) in Manila in January 1996 urged the acceleration and
expansion of project initiatives on mutual recognition of skill qualifications.

The main impetus came after the APEC HRD Working Group, which met in Wellington,
New Zealand in January 1996, agreed to Australia’s financial sponsorship on the
Project focusing on professional engineering accreditation, recognition and
development. The main aim is of course to develop Mutual Recognition Arrangement
(MRA) to promote trades in services within the APEC region and mobility of engineers.

Eight member economies, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, New

Zealand, Philippines, Thailand and United States of America, participated in the First
Steering Committee Meeting of the Project held in Sydney in May 1996. The meeting
agreed to proceed with a comprehensive survey on professional institutions and
societies, registration of professional engineers, engineering education and continuing
professional development. The results of the survey would form the framework for the
best practices in professional engineering accreditation, recognition and development.

The Steering Committee had a number of meetings and workshops to deliberate the
formation of APEC Engineer. Malaysia’s participation begins in 1997, attending a
workshop on APEC Engineer in Manila. At the Final Steering Committee Meeting and
Inaugural APEC Engineer Coordinating Committee Meeting held in November 1999,
the following founding members were admitted into the coordinating committee:
Australia; Canada; Hong Kong, China; Japan; Korea; Malaysia; New Zealand and
Thailand. The formal commencement year of the APEC Engineer Register started in
2000.

Currently, 14 of the 21 APEC member economies are authorised to operate APEC

Engineers Register.

2. OBJECTIVES OF APEC ENGINEER

APEC Engineer aims to:

 • Promote mobility of qualified engineers within APEC through mutual
recognition of qualifications and experience based on substantial equivalence
of engineering programme satisfying the academic requirements for the
practice of engineering at the professional level.

• Establish a strong cooperative network among engineering organisations in

APEC member economies, for trade services especially engineering services –
growth and efficiency.

3. DEFINITION OF APEC ENGINEER

An APEC Engineer is defined as a person who is recognised as a professional

engineer within an APEC Economy, and has satisfied an authorised body in that
economy, operating in accordance with the criteria and procedures approved by the
APEC Engineer Coordinating Committee. They are required to have:

• Completed an accredited and/or recognised engineering programme

• Been assessed within their own jurisdiction as eligible for independent practice
• Gained a total of at least seven years of practical experience since graduation
• Spent at least two years in responsible charge of significant engineering work
• Maintained their continuing professional development at a satisfactory level

Many of the APEC Economies are now full members of Washington Accord.

All practitioners seeking registration as APEC Engineers must also agree to be bound
by the codes of professional conduct established and enforced by their home
jurisdiction and by any other jurisdiction within which they are practising. Such codes
normally include requirements that practitioners place the health, safety and welfare of
the community above their responsibilities to clients and colleagues, practise only
within their area of competence, and advise their clients when additional professional
assistance becomes necessary in order to implement a programme or project.

APEC Engineers must also agree to be held individually accountable for their actions,
both through requirements imposed by the licensing or registering body in the
jurisdictions in which they work and through legal processes.

4. ROUTE TO BECOME AN APEC ENGINEER

The route to become an APEC Engineer is to apply through an authorised register of

APEC Engineer in an APEC economy. A professional engineer wishes to apply must
first be a licensed or certified engineer to practice independently in that APEC
Economy.

The APEC economy seeking to operate an authorised APEC Register must gather the
representatives from government, industry, relevant professional institutions or
associations and higher education institutions delivering engineering programmes and
should be recognised as competent by the authorities responsible for registration and
licensing within the economy.

A Monitoring Committee will be established to nominate a representative to participate

as a non-voting member on the APEC Engineer Coordinating committee that has the
ultimate authority for conferring an authorised register in an APEC economy.

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The primary objective of the Monitoring Committee will be to develop and maintain a
Register of APEC Engineers in compliance with the APEC Engineer Frameworks as
shown in Figure 1.

The Monitoring Committee established will then draft Assessment Statement in

accordance with the APEC Manual
(http://www.ieagreements.com/APEC/Documents/APECEngineerManual.pdf) and
provide a copy of the draft statement to the Secretariat of the APEC Engineer
Coordinating Committee for circulation to all the official representatives of authorised
APEC Registers. Currently 14 out of 21 APEC economies have authorised APEC
Registers and the Secretariat of APEC Engineer is Institution of Professional
Engineers New Zealand.

The Assessment Statement will be tabled and considered by the APEC Engineer
Coordinating Committee according to the APEC Coordinating Committee Rules.

When approval is granted, the Monitoring Committee will provisionally be authorised to

develop and maintain a Register in accordance with the Assessment Statement of
Criteria and Procedures. The continued authorisation will be subject to periodical
review, currently at an interval of a maximum of six years.

5. ASEAN ENGINEERING REGISTRATION (AER) MODEL

The mobility of engineering services within the ASEAN (10 nations) was initiated by
private sector through engineering institutions in ASEAN at a conference of ASEAN
Federation of Engineering Organisations (AFEO). It started with ASEAN
Architects/Engineers Register and was amended to ASEAN Engineers Register in
1999 to focus and expedite promotion of benchmarking and mobility of engineers. In
2010, it became known as the ASEAN Engineering Register registering the whole
engineering team comprises of ASEAN Engineers, ASEAN Engineering Technologists,
ASEAN Technicians, Associate ASEAN Engineers, Associate ASEAN Engineering
Technologists and Associate ASEAN Technicians (Choo Kok Beng, 2012).

Choo (2012) highlighted that the various titles awarded by the AER give peer
recognition for their respective competencies and capabilities. It will accord them the
necessary respect, recognition as an accredited technical person. This will enhance
their employment prospects and business ventures into other ASEAN countries.

The public sector started to facilitate mobility of engineers in ASEAN after the signing
of ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992. The framework of Mutual Recognition
Arrangement (MRA) of Engineering Services to support AFTA was later signed in 2005
which spells out the requirements for cross-border practice of professional engineering
consultancy services for various engineering works.

Liberation of trade in services in ASEAN is designed through the mechanism of

ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) signed in 1995. The MRA signed
by ASEAN government ministers gives authority to Professional Regulatory
Authorisation (PRA) of ASEAN Member countries on registration/licensing/certification
of practice of engineering and monitoring and assessment of Registered Foreign
Professional Engineers (RFPE) to ensure compliance with the MRA. The MRA
emphasised collaboration with local Professional Engineers in the host country and
subject to their domestic laws and regulations governing the practice of engineering.
The objectives of the MRA are:

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 a) To enhance cooperation in services amongst Member States in order to
improve the efficiency and competitiveness, diversify production capacity and
supply and distribution of services of their service suppliers within and outside
ASEAN;
b) To eliminate substantial restrictions to trade in services amongst Member
States; and
c) To liberalise trade in services by expanding the depth and scope of
liberalisation beyond those undertaken by Member States under the GATS with
the aim to realising a free trade area in services.

The private sector is very active in many institutional activities such as the annual
CAFEO.

6. ENGINEERS MOBILITY FORUM

After the biennial meeting of the signatories to the Washington Accord on 27 and 28
October 1997, it was agreed that an independent forum to be known as Engineers
Mobility Forum (EMF) to be established to explore mutual recognition for experienced
engineers. The final Memorandum of Understanding Agreement to establish and
maintain an international register of such engineers was signed at Thornybush in
South Africa on 25 June 2001. This included a number of countries in addition to those
of the Washington Accord.

To ensure consistency in application of the agreed criteria, ultimate authority for

entering persons on the EMF Professional International Register will remain with an
International Register Coordinating Committee.

EMF International Professional Engineer Register is essentially the same as APEC

Engineer Register. The signatories aim to facilitate cross-border practice by
experienced professional engineers by establishing a framework for their recognition
based on confidence in the integrity of national assessment systems, secured through
continuing mutual inspection and evaluation of those systems.

To grant entry into the EMF International Professional Engineer, an engineer must
demonstrate that he/she have:
• Recognised Degree in Engineering substantially equivalent to a degree
accredited by an organisation holding full membership of, and acting in
accordance with the terms of the Washington Accord
• Assessed in own economy as eligible for independent practice
• Minimum seven years practical experience since graduation
• At least two years in responsible charge of significant engineering work
• Maintained continual professional development at satisfactory level

Currently there are 15 full members and the registered engineers are as shown in
Table 1. The Provisional member is Bangladesh. Pakistan was awarded interim
authorisation to operate an EMF International Professional Engineer register in June
2011.

7. CHALLENGES OF THE APEC ENGINEER

The APEC Engineer register has been operating since year 2000. The registered
APEC Engineers for each economy at June 2011 is shown in Figure 2. The growth for
the last 10 years has been slow as shown in Figure 3. This number is small in
comparison with the total professional engineers in the 21 economies. It is even

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smaller if it is compared with the total engineers including young engineers and
professional engineers who are not licensed or certified to practice independently in
their own economy. One of the criteria to qualify for APEC Engineer is having license
International Engineer Register and certificate to practice independently.

When we compare with one benchmarking register such as EMF International

Professional which started a year after APEC Engineer, the member of registered
engineers in its 15 member economies is only about 60% of the registered APEC
Engineers. The growth of it is also shown in Figure 3 and 14 member economies
operate both the APEC Engineers and EMF International Professional engineers
registers and most of them are having common monitoring committee members for the
register.

In terms of ratio, EMF International Professional register covers areas with much
bigger population but has lesser number of registered professional engineers in the
register.

Another register was mooted by the active institution or societies of engineers in

ASEAN which has 10 economies. Its register was started by AFEO without
involvement of licensing or certification bodies for independent practice and has
registered 2,040 engineers as at December 2011.

In 2005, the ASEAN economic ministers signed the ASEAN Mutual Recognition
Arrangement on Engineering Services formation of ASEAN Chartered Professional
Engineer (ACPE). This benchmark register, which is the main part of the Mutual
Recognition Arrangement (MRA) is basically adopting the APEC Engineer Model but
managed by Professional Regulatory Authority (PRA) in the 10 ASEAN member
countries. Those ASEAN member countries without a Licensing board are in the
process of setting up their Licensing board.

As at the end of December 2011, some 400 ACPE have been registered. In addition,
the MRA specifies collaboration for local professional engineers engineering services.
Thus, independent practice of an ACPE from an ASEAN member is not allowed in a
host member country.

Realising that majority of the engineering services is through integrated engineering

services, AFEO has now introduced the following additional categories of registered
engineering support staff:

i) ASEAN Engineering Technologists (AET)

ii) ASEAN Technicians (AT)
iii) Associate ASEAN Engineers (AAE)
iv) Associate ASEAN Engineering Technologists (AAET)
v) Associate ASEAN Technicians (AAT)

The mobility of licensed professional engineers is generally small in comparison with

the total population of engineers. In the case of Malaysia, the number of professional
engineers licensed to practice independently is 10,423 which is less than 15% of the
total registered engineers with the Licensing Board, Board of Engineers Malaysia as at
April 2012. In Malaysia, the Engineers Act requires all graduate engineers working as
engineers to register with the Board. Generally, the trend is also true in the other
economies.

Fajar Hirawan and Wahyu Triwidodo (2011) have done a survey on the ASEAN MRA
and found that many professional engineers do not register themselves in the ACPE
Register. The reasons noted are:

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 • No significant benefit to be registered and become ACPE
• No major difference for them before and after having certification as an ACPE
• Lack of engineers working in destination country and origin country who earned
an ACPE
• No clear paths in using the ASEAN certification
• Lack of promotion in the register

Nevertheless, Benchmark Registers are necessary MRA to facilitate mobility of

engineers in promoting liberation of trade in services.

The APEC Engineer Register should be promoted as the recognised register in the
MRA for bilateral or multilateral trade negotiations between APEC economies. Thus,
representatives of APEC Engineer Registers should work with their respective
government agencies in charge of trade negotiation to promote APEC Engineer
Register as the MRA. This will provide the impetus to expedite trade in engineering
services.

The benefits of APEC Engineers include:-

i) Benchmark of achievement of Professional engineers
ii) Migration of the imbalance of demand and supply of engineers within countries
in the region
iii) Better use of technology and resources
iv) Technology transfer
v) Common code of practice and standard for the regional with national annex to
suit each national need and affordability while maintaining the minimum
standard of the regional for trade purpose

8. THE WAY FORWARD

The way forward to achieve the full potential of the APEC Engineer on mobility of
engineers is to integrate benchmarking and trade negotiation through public and
private partnership together with the input professional bodies such as Institution of
Engineers and licensing or certification board of engineers for practice.

Trade in services includes plant and equipment, products including materials,

engineering design and construction management such as Engineering Procurement
and Construction Management (EPCM) which is the bulk of the trade while
engineering design is a small portion of the total trade in engineering services.

This integrated engineering service is classified under World Trade Organisation

(WTO), CPC 86733 while the CPC 68732 covers engineering design services.
Consequently, trade in services should include young engineers, technologists and
technicians.

The linkage of APEC Engineer with the International Benchmarking bodies and WTO,
regional as well national government leaders are shown in Figure 4.

Multilateral agreement in regional and International trade organization also encourages

the use of bilateral agreement to expedite MRA in the trade negotiation to improve
trade in services. The benchmarking register of APEC should be used as the MRA for
the trade in within APEC economic.

The statistics in Figure 3 show that the number of registered engineers in APEC is
much higher than the EMF International Professional Engineers. The main reason to
this is the involvement of APEC Economic Ministers in the APEC Engineer.

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In fact, the benchmarking of the APEC Engineer was mooted by APEC Human
Resources Development Ministers (HRD) in Manila in January 1996 urging the
acceleration and expansion of mutual recognition of skill qualifications to facilitate
trade within the region.

Trade within the 21 economies of APEC will of course complement the initiative of
World Trade Organisation (WTO) in liberalising world trade.

Bear in mind that the code of practice and standard as well as quality of engineering
plant and equipment should achieve a minimum standard for cross-border trade.
Nevertheless, the need and affordability within an economy could vary from the
economies in the regions.

Continuous promotions of APEC Engineer Register through various national, regional

and international activities as well as harmonisation of engineering education accords
and registers are needed. This will promote better use of resources in assessment of
standards, monitoring and review of accords and registers.

References:-

Choo K.B. (2012), “The ASEAN Engineering Community in 2015”, 2nd Engineering
Summit, Manila, Philippines

Fajar B. Hirawan & Wahyu Triwidodo (2012), “Examining the ASEAN Mutual
Recognition Arrangement (MRA) Implementation Process on Engineering and
Architectural Services and Its Impact to the Professionals: Indonesian Perspective”,
Structural Reform, Services and Logisitics - Building Policy Making Capacity in
APEC/Services Workshop 2012, Jakarta, Indonesia

http://www.aseansec.org

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ROUTE TO BECOME AN APEC ENGINEER
ACTIVITY BY/THROUGH
INDEPENDENT AUTHORISED
BODY FOR APEC ENGINEER
REGISTER
Secondary Education Diploma
Accreditation / Recognition of Completed an Accredited / Recognised
Engineering Program Engineering Programme
Qualifying Experience Individual Eligible for Independent Practice
Assessments Established by Home
Economy
Total of at least 7 years practical
experience since graduation
Individual Assessments

Individual Assessments 2 years Responsible Charge of

Significant Engineering Work (in the
Assessment of Continued Practice course of 7 years practical experience)
and Continuing Professional
Education Continuing Professional Development
at Satisfactory Level
Mutual Recognition of Engineering
Education and Advanced Level
Experience
APEC Engineer
APEC Engineer Registry (Monitoring
Committee Independent Authorised
Designated Professional Body)

Figure 1: THE APEC ENGINEER FRAMEWORK

 USA

Thailand

Singapore

Russia

Philippines

New Zealand
Country

Malaysia

Korea

Japan
No. of APEC Engineers
Indonesia

Hong Kong

Chinese Taipei

Canada

Australia

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

No. of Registered APEC Engineers

Figure 2: REGISTERED APEC ENGINEERS FOR EACH ECONOMY AT JUNE 2011

 7000

6000

5000
No. of Registered Engineers

4000

No. of APEC Engineers

3000
No. of EMF Engineers

2000

1000

0
0 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011
Year

Figure 3 : NUMBER OF REGISTERED APEC ENGINEERS & EMF INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERS

Page 1
 WFEO WTO

OTHER ASEAN APEC FEANI Euro International OTHER

Regional Engineer Engineer Engineer EMF Regional
Register Register Register Register Engineer Register
Register

NOTE :
WFEO : World of Federation of Engineering Organisations
WTO : World Trade Organisation
FEANI : European Federation of National Engineering Associations

Figure 4: PROPOSED LINK OF BENCHMARKING REGISTERS WITH WORLD TRADE ORGANISATIONS

 Economies APEC Engineers IntPE Engineer
1 Australia 400 400
2 Canada 16 16
3 Hong Kong, China 37 38
4 India - 33
5 Indonesia 26 -
6 Ireland - 10
7 Japan 2,589 500
8 South Korea 970 970
9 Malaysia 341 341
10 New Zealand 1,472 1,472
11 Philippines 51 -
12 Russia 30(3) -
13 South Africa - 17
14 Singapore 12 0
15 Sri Lanka - 63
16 Chinese Taipei 80 68
17 Thailand 37 -
18 United Kingdom - 126 (68)
19 United States of America 219 219
6280 (3) 4273 (68)

- Not a member of the Register

( ) Members registered with address outside the economy
- Not member of EMF International Professional Engineers Register

Table 1: REGISTERED APEC AND INTERNATIONAL

PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS REPORTED AT IEAM 2011