APEC looks to Europe, China<\/p>\n
By Jason Leow<\/p>\n
BEIJING: With pen to notebook and fingers to their recorders,
\nreporters were ready to dash to the first delegate who emerged
\nfrom the opening day of talks at the Asia-Pacific Economic
\nCooperation forum (APEC) Finance Ministers' Meeting last week.<\/p>\n
Their mission: To record the wisdom of experts on how to beat
\nthe global gloom.<\/p>\n
That was last Saturday in Suzhou, one day after the United
\nStates reported its jobless rate soaring to a four-year high of
\n4.9 percent. Japan, too, had announced a 0.8-percent contraction
\nin the three months ending in June.<\/p>\n
Delegate after delegate shunned the media or said they could
\nreveal little until Sunday, when they would issue an official
\nstatement about an action plan. Indeed, two days of discussion
\nand bilateral exchanges ended on an upbeat note.<\/p>\n
Rallying together, ministers declared they would press on with
\nefforts to lift the region from the slump and promote sustained
\ngrowth. They issued a five-page joint ministerial statement
\nsignaling this commitment. But that was saying as little as they
\nhad before.<\/p>\n
With so much serious engagement leading to so little, APEC had
\naffirmed itself -- again -- as a talkshop, a view which China's
\nVice-Finance Minister Jin Liqun and Singapore's Finance Minister
\nRichard Hu themselves tried to beat down.<\/p>\n
They argued that APEC set the stage for free-flowing and
\ncandid talks among finance ministers, who would go away with
\nclearer ideas of how different economies coped with the slowdown.<\/p>\n
More importantly, said Jin, there was a need not to talk down
\nthe economy further. It made sense to rally together at a time of
\ncrisis, he said.<\/p>\n
To reporters, and possibly their readers around the world,
\nthat view seemed just so many words.<\/p>\n
But to be fair, last weekend's APEC platform did generate two
\nimportant insights.<\/p>\n
One was that Europe, which has for so long looked inwards to
\nits own economic problems, needs to engage the global economy
\nmore aggressively -- particularly at a time when the U.S. and
\nJapan cannot.<\/p>\n
At a briefing for Singapore reporters, Dr Hu said: \"There has
\nbeen a feeling that we should leave everything to the U.S., to
\nrequire the U.S. to lift everyone up.<\/p>\n
\"Now, all the major developed economies recognize they should
\ncontribute. Japan wants to do more. But with its current
\nproblems, that would be difficult but it is committed. So Europe
\nhas to do a bit more.\"<\/p>\n
With hindsight, APEC yielded a timely wake-up call to Europe.
\nTuesday's terror attacks on the U.S. threaten to puncture
\nAmerican consumer confidence, which has been the one factor left
\npreventing a complete economic fallout.<\/p>\n
With the U.S. and Japan reeling from their domestic troubles,
\nEurope needs to become the third leg propping up the global
\neconomy. It needs to step away from its \"fixation\", as Dr Hu
\ndescribed, with inflationary controls, and pump-prime its economy
\nwith more flexible fiscal programs.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, China also thought it was ready to play a bigger
\npart. As one of the major beneficiaries of the global economy, it
\nsaid it was now also ready to cooperate more.<\/p>\n
Even more significantly, it was prepared to accept the ills
\nthat come with trade liberalization. Analysts are hoping its
\ndeclaration indicates a willingness to share its 1.3 billion
\nconsumers with foreign partners.<\/p>\n
Nothing from last weekend's joint ministerial statement could
\nhave sounded better than this.<\/p>\n
-- The Straits Times\/Asia News Network<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/apec-looks-to-europe-china-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }