A new milestone

Even before the meeting started in Bogor yesterday, one could feel the consensus emanating from the 18 APEC leaders who were all dressed in specially designed Indonesian batik shirts. The press conference later in the day only confirmed that the occasion was not just another international talk-shop.

The APEC Economic Leaders Meeting finally endorsed what is termed the "Indonesian vision", i.e. a commitment to liberalization towards free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region along the principles of GATT. They also designated a set of dates: the developed nations should implement free and open trade and investment no later than the year 2010 and the developing economies no later than 2020.

Even though they fell short of determining an agenda on when and how to start the whole process, the political commitment to set specific target dates is already an enormous step and gives a strong signal to the whole world. All the more so because it comes at a time when the momentum for free trade is faltering elsewhere in the world.

At the tender age of five years, the APEC grouping of 18 economies is still in a fragile stage that does not discount the possibility of fragmentation. The diversity of its members is such that APEC encompasses practically all of the underlying conflicts of interest that set the East against the West, the North against the South, the developed nations against the developing nations.

Their per capita incomes range from US$470 in China, among the lowest in the world, to $28,500 in Japan, among the world's highest. Their populations range from 267,800 in Brunei to 1.2 billion in China. The socio-political spectrum varies from that of the last bastion of communism to that of the most capitalistic of nations.

There are at least three existing sub-regional trade arrangements in the area, AFTA (comprising the six ASEAN countries), ANZERTA (Australia and New Zealand) and NAFTA (Canada, Mexico and the USA). Each of them has its own exclusive and specific goals and targets, and each is not at ease with the others.

Three APEC members (the USA, Japan and Canada) belong to the world's "rich men's club", the G-7, which regularly addresses the course of the world economy according to their own designs. On the other hand, one member, that being Indonesia, is among the world's poorer nations. It chairs the Non-Aligned Movement of 108 countries, frequently dubbed the "poor club". And in between you have the newly-industrialized countries (NICs) of the world.

However, despite all that has been said, the Asia-Pacific region is also the most dynamic region in the world. While other parts of the world are engaged in armed conflicts, or immersed in problems of high unemployment and its implications to economies, the countries of the Asia-Pacific region are experiencing economic miracles.

And for the last several years the nations of this region have found that their economies are becoming more and more integrated, providing the world's highest growth rate. Trade across the Pacific has outstripped trade across the Atlantic. Investments across borders in the region are accelerating to everyone's delight.

The coming together of representatives of 12 economies of the region in Canberra in 1989 did not get the attention it deserved at first, either from the outside world, or from their own constituents back home. The inclusion of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan two years later -- already an undreamed of possibility elsewhere -- still did not invoke encouraging support. Even after the first informal leaders meeting on Blake Island last year, one could feel a very reserved appreciation.

APEC was seen more as a talk-shop, with negligible substance; and this is underlined by the fact that its summit meeting is termed an "informal leaders meeting". From the outside, it has been observed suspiciously as the creation of a new and exclusive trading bloc. And internally there was a feeling that the concept of free trade was not to the interests of some members like China and Indonesia.

The Bogor meeting proves that this experiment can work and is not to be dismissed as just another international get- together. Its strategic importance lies not in its structure -- or lack of it -- or in any specific schedule like the one adopted by ASEAN or the European Union for that matter. Rather, it lies in its contribution to regional peace and prosperity. Free trade and investment are just two of the means to that end. They are not ends in themselves. For the last several years the Asia-Pacific region has distinguished itself as a region of relative peace and prosperity. The institutionalization of APEC can only enhance that.