So BISK wraps up these forces for change. There are at least two sets of issues.

One is what it really means. Is there a core component or is this another list in the APEC list of lists? Take the components in turn:

Balanced
Within economies, this means adjusting the level of consumption compared to savings, the flip side of which is a change in the international flows of capital. The idea of balance also implies removing some distortions in East Asia which have enhanced exports and reduced imports, which will lead to greater production in the competing domestic sectors. In other words, balance involves a structural change within these economies (and a shift in the reverse in the United States)

Inclusive
This means including more people in the distribution of the benefits of growth, which requires a higher level of domestic integration. The achievement of domestic integration will require better infrastructure, and a series of structural reforms (most broadly defined by competition policy). Better infrastructure is also necessary in order to attach producers in the less developed economies, or less developed parts of economies, to the regional supply chains.

Sustainable
This means pricing environmental inputs properly and getting rid of implicit subsidies on their use, which requires a round of structural change especially in sectors which use these inputs intensively.

Knowledge-based
This means removing barriers to the adoption of digital technologies, which are a source of productivity growth. Many of these barriers relate to regulatory issues in the telecom, media and content-provider sectors. Removing these distortions will lead to further structural change.

The key words here are structural change. That focus is nothing new. APEC members have been dealing with structural change for years, but their original focus was on changes in structure associated with capturing the benefits of greater global integration. APEC’s initial role was to build the confidence to make those changes, and that confidence building role remains important, but, as a consequences of past successes, APEC has a new role as the driver of structural change.

BISK captures the transition in APEC’s agenda towards driving this structural change both within and between economies, As an aside, it would better, though, to think of a more engaging phrase for ‘structural change’.

The second issue is how to make the transition work. Clearly, the BISK agenda requires attention to structural reform (the re-design of domestic policy on infrastructure, of a variety of regulations as well as new rules on the environment). Can APEC really deal with that agenda?

A key challenge for APEC in implementing BISK is that APEC’s organisation and decision making processes are more focused upon cross-border issues. But officials have been working hard on the ‘behind the border agenda.’ They have discovered that it’s pretty hard to find the ‘minister for structural reform’. Indeed, there are not many countries which even have a ‘go to’ organisation on structural reform. And maybe this is the point, that the starting place for the BISK agenda should be the design of regulatory review or policy assessment and government performance benchmarking processes in the member economies. That is something that APEC can work on as its core business, since the creation of better policy making processes in all members will create confidence and help APEC’s member countries to deal with the structural changes embodied in the BISK agenda.

Some leaders of APEC member countries already meet in the G20. Because of this, these leaders may have more grunt to drive this sort of reform package than ministers with narrower portfolios, like trade or foreign affairs. So the G20 could present a further challenge to APEC’s position. But the G20 has no operational capacity yet and so a partnership with APEC makes sense, if APEC can explain what it wants. Specifically, APEC can be very good at the business of benchmarking, sharing experience, and helping economies avoid having to redo homework that others have already done.

The BISK agenda doesn’t mean the end of familiar work on international integration. There is still a lot of work to do to remove barriers to international capital flows (this links to the infrastructure agenda) and to the movement of people, for instance. If the items of financial and human capital are added to the BISK agenda it may look overloaded, but without those factor movements there won’t be much progress on the BISK agenda anyway. These are the ‘enablers’ to other changes.

BISK is a good agenda for APEC’s future. APEC has the capacity to make it work. But in order for BISK to take hold, APEC must frame the agenda, and persuade international organisations and member countries of its central role as a driver of structural change.