APEC sets priorities at Singapore meeting<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE (AP): A government-business group working to develop
\nthe express air delivery business in Asia-Pacific countries is a
\nmodel for other such efforts to open and build the region's
\nmarkets, a U.S. official said yesterday.<\/p>\n
\"The customs working group is a real example of what the rest
\nof APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nations) could
\ndo,\" U.S. APEC ambassador John Wolf told reporters after a two-
\nday meeting attended by only six senior officials in the 18-
\nnation association.<\/p>\n
APEC's customs working group has pilot projects on express
\nmail service in the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia
\n\"to demonstrate what modern practices are,\" Wolf said. The
\ncustoms group is a model because it includes private sector
\ncompanies in the planning stage and moves quickly toward concrete
\nchanges.<\/p>\n
\"APEC is about opening markets and building markets,\" Wolf
\nsaid. He said he would have preferred that more senior officials
\nattended the inaugural meeting of a subcommittee on economic and
\ntechnological cooperation.<\/p>\n
Only Malaysia, Indonesia, the United States, Canada and New
\nZealand sent senior officials to the meeting chaired by Mexico's
\nAPEC Ambassador Jorge Lozoya. Other countries - including
\nSingapore where the APEC secretariat is headquartered - sent
\nlower level officials.<\/p>\n
Asia is behind the United States and Europe in electronic
\ncommerce, a market that Wolf said the region needs to get ready
\nfor quickly by changing laws and coordinating data transfer
\nsystems.<\/p>\n
\"In electronic commerce, profits are going to go to the
\nswiftest,\" he said. Noting that in recent APEC meetings, some
\nofficials refer to such business as something for the next
\ncentury, Wolf said, \"The next century is 18 months away.\"<\/p>\n
Earlier Lozoya announced that the subcommittee had agreed that
\nprojects to develop human resources and also future technology
\nwill be priorities for the next year.<\/p>\n
Lozoya said, \"We have to enhance the involvement of the
\nprivate sector in APEC activities all over the region. One of the
\ngreat hopes for the Pacific Basin is that we can put together a
\nsystemic view by which expansion of the corporations and
\nadvancement of societies can be (linked) in a more efficient
\nway.\"<\/p>",
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