Membership

1. Basis for Proposed Tiers – Is it sound?
• The tiers were proposed based on visual analysis of the calculated scores based on the three criterion.
• Histograms of the scores are presented in the figure below. It should be noted that:
(1) The mean score (blue
dash line) ‘almost nicely’
cuts the 4 tiers into 2.
(2) The median score (red dash
line) cuts into Tier 3. It is not
reasonable to partition three
institutes having the same score
of 3.25 into two tiers or bringing
them into Tier 2 as this skews the
data toward the lower tier.
(3) Majority of institutes at the
border of Tiers 1 & 2 are
favorably placed in Tier 1.
(4) Majority of the institutes in
Tier 2 do not have scores at
the border of adjacent tiers.
(5) Shifting the four institutes
into Tier 3 might mean higher
fees for institutes in Tiers 1, 2 & 3
to maintain the same overall
annual membership fees.

2. Basis for Proposed Tiers – Is it sound?
• We use one of the simplest and popular unsupervised machine learning algorithms known as K-clustering to make
inferences about the dataset (calculated scores based on criterion 1, 2 & 3).
• The objective of K-means is simple: the machine groups similar data points together and discover underlying
patterns.
Outcome 1
As compared to the tiered structure derived based on visual
inspection:
• Four institutes in Tier 1 appear to belong to Tier 2
• One institute in Tier 2 appears to belong to Tier 3
• Four institutes in Tier 4 appear to belong to Tier 3
This clustering derives an expected membership fee of
USD 257,660*.
*Excluding fees from North Korea, Syria and Iran, and
including fees from DIs.

3. Basis for Proposed Tiers – Is it sound?
Outcome 2
As compared to the tiered structure derived based on visual
inspection:
• One institute in Tier 2 appear to belong to Tier 2
This clustering derives an expected membership fee of
USD 269,760*.
*Excluding fees from North Korea, Syria and Iran, and
including fees from DIs.
Outcome 2 supports the proposed tiered structure to a
large extent.

4. Basis for Proposed Tiers – Is it sound?
Outcome 3
As compared to the tiered structure derived based on visual
inspection:
• Two institutes in Tier 2 appear to belong to Tier 1
• Four institutes in Tier 3 appear to belong to Tier 2
• Five institutes in Tier 4 appear to belong to Tier 3
This clustering derives an expected membership fee of
USD 225,960*.
*Excluding fees from North Korea, Syria and Iran, and
including fees from DIs.

5. Question – How much should APMP’s annual receivables be?
1999  2021 2019#  2021
Full + Associate member economies 90.2%  (absolute terms) 10.4%  (absolute terms)
Full member economies only 92.6%  (absolute terms) 10.4%  (absolute terms)
Consumer price index based on World Bank data*:
*https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FP.CPI.TOTL?end=2021&start=1999 #Last year before COVID-19 pandemic started
Budget utilisation in 2019: 34%
Budget utilisation in post-COVID years: 34% CPI by 2022: 10.4% + 5.2%
We can conservatively estimate 1.156*34% = 39 % (nearest whole digit) utilisation of the budget. Based on the FY2022
budget for APMP’s baseline activities (i.e. excluding COVID-19 special programmes) of USD 328K, APMP’s post-COVID
expenditure is estimated to be 39%*USD328K = USD128K after FY2022.
Note: In FY2019, DEC budget utilisation was only 25%, that is USD 33.9K was unutilised.

6. Question – How much should APMP’s annual receivables be?
As at 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
USD 535,666 610,711 675,551 745,943 890,404 869,220 ()
Cash at bank
Note: Exchange rate has changed from SGD 1=USD 0.73650 in 2021 to SGD 1=USD 0.70087 in 2022, which is a drop by
4.8%. For SGD 1,240,199.25 (USD 869,218) cash at bank as of 3 Oct 2022 statement, we are talking about a “loss” of
USD 44.2K in value due to the currency exchange over the past 1 year.

7. Question – How much should APMP’s annual receivables be?
Expected expenditure of USD
127.9K
“Loss” of USD 44.2K due to
weakening of currency
TOTAL: USD 172.1K
Annual membership fees
received in FY2021 was 87%
of the expected receivable of
USD 217,800
TOTAL: USD 189.5K
USD 17.4 K
Insufficient should DEC achieve full budget utilisation with the rollout of all its Taskforce initiatives.
APMP will expect a deficit for the FY.
What should APMP’s real receivables be? Is APMP’s current reserve of USD 869K sufficient to support APMP’s new
initiatives and activities (e.g. co-sponsored events with MOU partners) and to cushion inflations?