Annenberg-Dreier Commission Announces High Level Meetings in Asia to Advance Free Trade and Cross Border Data Flows

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- David Dreier, chairman of the Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands, will travel to Tokyo this week to meet with senior business and government officials on trade dimensions of cross border data flows.

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The meetings will take place in advance of an October 8-9 conference in Singapore. The conference, the first Asia-Pacific consultation on data flow as a trade issue, will be hosted by the Los Angeles-based Commission and The Brookings Institution.

David Dreier, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was part of the Republican leadership and chaired the influential House Rules Committee. He has consistently been one of the nation's most powerful voices in favor of open commerce as an engine for economic growth and human opportunity. He played a key role in the passage of free trade agreements with key U.S. trading partners in Asia and the Americas.

In Tokyo, he will meet with key corporate and government leaders to discuss the growing importance of data flow to the operations of a wide range of global companies. He will brief on the Cross Border Data Flows project, which is aimed at developing principles that safeguard data flow while still allowing for legitimate regulation.

The project comes as a number of governments have adopted, are contemplating or implementing policies that impose new controls on data flow. According to David Dreier, these controls "...can have dangerous and unintended consequences of stifling trade, at a substantial cost in lost revenue, taxes, jobs, and opportunity."

David Dreier noted, that "governments and businesses have the most accurate possible understanding of the economic value of cross border data flows, and policies which govern those flows must strike a healthy balance between the many equities involved."

The Singapore meeting will be attended by policy experts and senior executives from global firms active in the Asia-Pacific, representing sectors as diverse as financial services, manufacturing, data services, and e-commerce.

About The Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands

The Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands organizes retreats and meetings to develop new agendas for practical cooperation that will advance trade and related interests across the region, which includes Asia, the Americas and the rest of the Greater Pacific. Its advisory board is comprised of distinguished public servants and diplomats. Co-chaired by Jon Huntsman, former U.S. Ambassador to China and Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty, III, former White House Chief of Staff, the advisory board includes former U.S. Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, and former World Bank president Robert Zoellick, among others.

The Commission is part of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating entity. Sunnylands hosts high-level retreats that address serious issues facing the nation and the world, including the recent meeting between President Obama and President Xi of the People's Republic of China. More information can be found at www.sunnylands.org/dreier-commission.

SOURCE Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands

Media Contact: Geoffrey Baum, Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands, 213-337-3102, [email protected]

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SOURCE Annenberg-Dreier Commission at Sunnylands