SOUTH KOREAN city, Daejeon, has received the honour of hosting the next Asia Pacific Cities Summit and Mayors’ Forum in 2017 (2017APCS), following the record-breaking success of this year’s summit, which attracted 95 city leaders and more than 1,000 delegates over four days.

City of Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said Daejeon was selected ahead of five finalist bidding cities – Busan, Kuching, Panama, Ahmedabad, and Penang Island.

“The 2017APCS attracted the most competitive and diverse range of bidding cities that we’ve ever seen in our 10-year history, highlighting the growing importance of this forum in bringing city leaders together to discuss, share, and help respond to city urbanisation challenges across the Asia Pacific,” Cr Quirk said.

“As a sister city since 2002, Daejeon’s growing reputation as a leader in innovation and technology strongly aligned with our aspiration of becoming Australia’s new world city.

“Being the fifth largest city in Korea and Australia’s third largest export market, Daejeon has fast become the ‘Silicon Valley’ of Korea, with many of its large global businesses now based in Brisbane and south-east Queensland including Samsung, POSCO, CJ Nutracon, and KOGAS.

“In addition, we’ve further strengthened our partnership through a new Memorandum of Understanding signed earlier today with the Daejeon Metropolitan City Government.

“We are proud to announce it will launch an exciting internship program that will enable 20 Daejeon students to study English at International House in Brisbane.

“Congratulations to Mayor Kwon Sun-taik and his Government on their hard work in delivering such an outstanding bid and we look forward to 2017 for what will be an even bigger and better summit in Daejeon.”

On the final day of 2015APCS, delegates also heard from New York best-selling author, former Facebook Director of Marketing, and Zuckerberg Media Founder and CEO Randi Zuckerberg.

“Randi’s unique style thoroughly entertained our delegates, presenting her favourite 10 trends businesses could use to inject more creativity into their branding and marketing, encourage a ‘hacker’ or entrepreneurial spirit within their employees, and generally overcome a fear of failure,” Cr Quirk said.

Following her keynote, four young professionals took to the stage on behalf of more than 100 participants in the Young Professionals Program. Together they presented their cost-neutral solutions for cities on a range of urban challenges including transportation, sanitation, and energy efficiency.

“The calibre of young delegates from across the region engaged in the Young Professionals Forum continues to grow every year. This time they got the unique opportunity to present in front of over 90 city leaders, who collectively impact the lives of more than 130 million citizens around the world. Congratulations to this group of emerging young talent and we look forward to seeing how our leaders empower their ideas in the future,” Cr Quirk said.

The Mayors’ Accord was also officially announced and signed by all participating mayors today.

“Cities in the Asia Pacific will work together, with global partners, to advance common urban solutions in order to accelerate their global orientation, integration into the knowledge economy, technology uptake, governance, and liveability,” Cr Quirk said.

www.apcsummit.org

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ON the agenda at the upcoming Vodafone National Small Business Summit on 16 and 17 July is a debate about the fairness and effectiveness of the government’s Competitive Policy Review, chaired by Professor Ian Harper, which sought to improve the Australian economy by ensuring a fair playing field in the interest of consumers.

Matthew Lobb, General Manager of Public Policy at Vodafone Australia; Jos de Bruin, Master Grocers Australia CEO; Simon Pryor, Executive Director Infrastructure and Regulation at Business Council Australia, and Danny Gilbert from Gilbert + Tobin, an independent corporate law firm, will go head-to-head with Su McCluskey, a member of the Competitive Policy Review Panel, to discuss whether the review helped or hindered small business and the consumer.

Master Grocers, the leading industry employer association for the independent grocery and liquor sector, takes a strong stance on the supermarket giant price war, which so far has seen Woolworths and Coles retain market share.

Jos de Bruin, CEO of Master Grocers said that for the last ten years his organisation has been advocating for changes to competition laws, to ensure a fair playing field.

“For the last ten years we’ve been advocating for changes to competition laws, to ensure a fair playing field and we welcome the Harper Competition Policy Review. The introduction of an effects test to section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act would strengthen existing laws for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and allow for necessary action to be taken.

“We have the public’s support on this matter, on wanting fair competition to build and maintain a vibrant economy. Our recent survey revealed that 90% of people want stronger laws and proper resources, so that the ACCC can stop anti competitive behaviour and protect the interests of consumers. Furthermore, many small businesses have their lives invested into their companies, and are responsible not only for their own mortgages and families, but their employees too. They haven’t got shareholders and billions of dollars to come to their aid, so it’s important that there’s fairness to enable success,” said Jos de Bruin.

Likewise, in the business of telecommunications, Vodafone goes up against heavyweight, Telstra.

Matthew Lobb, General Manager of Public Policy at Vodafone Australia, said that he welcomed the renewed public policy focus on overcoming the roadblocks to effective competition.

“A regulatory framework that is constantly working to deliver a level competitive playing field is crucial for Australia’s future. For example, greater focus on overcoming the roadblocks to effective competition in the telecommunications sector will help Vodafone and other challenger telco’s deliver substantial benefits to small business and the Australian economy,” said Mr Lobb.

The Summit, spearheaded by Council of Small Business of Australia (COSBOA), the peak body and the leading voice of small businesses, is the annual event where key leaders, policy influencers and government meet to exchange knowledge on how to influence and make change that will contribute to the growth of small businesses in Australia.

Peter Strong, CEO of Council of Small Business of Australia (COSBOA) said small businesses are the lifeblood of Australian culture; it represents the essence of our entrepreneurial spirit to allow everyone a ‘fair go’.

“Small businesses are essential to the stabilisation of the Australian economy. COSBOA stands beside small businesses to bolster them against the inequalities in the marketplace, which occur across all sectors. These inequalities ultimately have a knock on effect on employment, culture and our communities,” said Mr Strong.

Registrations are open for the Vodafone National Small Business Summit. For more information please visit www.nationalsmallbusinesssummit.com.au

http://www.cosboa.org.au/

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Speaking at APCS in Brisbane, Tencent’s SY Lau predicts Internet Plus will enable and encourage the rise of smart cities

(Brisbane, Australia, July 7, 2015) SY Lau, Senior Executive Vice President of Tencent and President of its Online Media Group, spoke about the future of cities powered by Internet Plus today at the 2015 Asia Pacific Cities Summit (APCS) and Mayors' Forum.

Championed by Tencent, Internet Plus in a new concept in China describing the relationship between the Internet and society.

nternet Plus provides the backbone for administrations to create innovative way to develop smart cities. The ecosystem created through Internet Plus with online and offline activities can efficiently allocate resources, better connect people to private and public sectors, encourage entrepreneurship and improve lives.

“Internet Plus will create a new infrastructure, one that cleverly and efficiently allocates resources to meet the challenges today and in the future,” said Mr Lau. “Electricity is an essential utility – it’s an invisible force that’s easy to access. The Internet is emerging as a utility that is just as essential as electricity. It is up to us to utilize the Internet fully to enhance people’s lives and power sustainable cities.”

Internet Plus is not just a way to improve lives in urban areas. With technology, rural communities and towns are advancing down a new and different path.

Villagers communicate with WeChat (known as Weixin in China) and organize activities with Moments; they make purchases online, sell their products through an online retail platform and they spend leisure time playing QQ Games. Innovators of Internet Plus in urban areas can learn from the way villagers apply technology and the Internet to improve their lives and communities. Examples include:

• Chongqing, a western Chinese mega-city of almost 30 million people, became the first city to implement the Smart City concept powered by the technology of Tencent. Within 5 years, Chongqing will equip all traffic entry points with nearly 1,000 smart traffic monitors, linking the city’s transportation platform. Real-time monitoring and analysis will provide more efficient management of transportation.
• Didi Dache, a mobile taxi hailing app, informs taxi drivers of their potential customer’s destinations and of other customers nearby. Drivers can decide whether or not to accept the order and, if so, plan routes in advance, saving themselves and their customer’s time and resources.  

Tencent will be a facilitator and connector in the age of Internet Plus. There are already 40,000 Official Accounts in Tencent’s WeChat platform providing easy access to a wide selection of public services.

Connecting people, businesses and governments to each other and to technology is the first step. By the end of this year, Tencent will have 25 Innovation Centers across China, offering over 500,000 square meters of space for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Mr Lau concluded, “Brisbane is the second city in the world after New York to have a position of Chief Digital Officer. This beautiful city is at the forefront of leveraging technology to better serve the people here. We feel the energy and passion the city had and it is a truly valuable time to share our development experience with Brisbane.” 

To watch how technology is changing the people’s lives in rural areas in China, please watch https://youtu.be/aocsQkkNmFg 

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THE Australian Competition and Consumer Commission welcomes the Federal Government’s decision to provide increased resources to boost its engagement with rural and regional industries, small businesses and consumers.

The Government has indicated its plans to implement policy outlined in the Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper, including allocating $11.4 million over four years to establish an Agricultural Enforcement and Engagement Unit with additional staff to conduct investigations and engagement in rural and regional areas.

"The ACCC will prioritise detecting, deterring and taking action against conduct that breaches the Competition and Consumer Act (2010) (CCA) that affects farmers and small businesses in rural and regional areas, particularly cartels, misuse of market power, and misleading or unconscionable conduct,” Acting Chair Delia Rickard said.

“The ACCC will strengthen its engagement with agricultural industries to understand factors effecting competition in rural and regional markets. This will also enable the ACCC to better explain its decisions to farmers and regional small businesses.”

Through the collective bargaining authorisation process, the ACCC has a long record of strengthening the position of growers and processors across a range of sectors including dairy, poultry, vegetables and seafood.