A sense of community

The Manila Action Plan for APEC (MAPA) endorsed by the forum's 18 leaders in the Philippines yesterday is a milestone in their drive to turn the Asia-Pacific area into a giant free trade region. The endorsement must now allay any remaining doubts about their commitment to free trade, and about the benefits it promises in bringing prosperity to their economies and peoples.

The first APEC summit, in Seattle in 1993, sowed in the leaders' minds the vision of a prosperous Asia-Pacific community, the Bogor summit in Indonesia in 1994 produced the pledge that the vision could be realized by dismantling trade barriers and the Osaka summit in Japan last year established the free trade agenda. It is only befitting that in Subic, the Philippines, yesterday, the leaders got down to the nitty gritty of trade matters to turn their words and pledges into action. This, they did to the credit of the summit's host, Philippine President Fidel Ramos. One often wonders whether there is any room for new initiatives for future APEC summit hosts to make their conferences as significant, if not more so, than the previous ones.

The leaders certainly did not beat around the bush. They declared that MAPA will be launched on Jan. 1, 1997, just over a month from now. MAPA is a collection of individual action plans for APEC's 18 economies on how they intend to go about dismantling trade barriers in their countries within the agreed time frames -- 2010 for developed countries, 2020 for developing countries. The plans are voluntary and non-binding, but since the commitment came from the leaders' themselves, we have no reason to doubt the intention. And the long time span given to members allows each one to move at a pace it feels most comfortable with, but always keeping in mind the agreed target dates.

When the free trade pledge was made in Bogor two years ago, it did look ambitious and almost too good to be true. But since then, the APEC leaders have managed to defy critics and doubters, by keeping up the momentum. Now with Manila, they have moved the Asia-Pacific area one step closer toward a free trade region.

This has been facilitated by a growing awareness in the Asia- Pacific area that trade is the best engine for economic growth, and therefore most appropriate means to propel the countries to greater prosperity; and that one simply cannot trade with one another as long as barriers exist.

Indonesia knows full well the benefits of free trade. Since it began with its own series of trade liberalization measures in the mid-1980s, its economy has grown robustly, at times even to the point of overheating. For Indonesia therefore, the action plan it took to Manila was a continuation of economic measures that have been in progress for the last decade or so. With or without APEC, Indonesia will move along the same course.

Free trade is almost always a win-win situation in which every player, even the small and weak, benefits. But the benefits will not necessarily be shared equally. Some benefit more than the rest. Generally, the strong and wealthy are in a better position to take advantage of free trade. This is not a level playing field we are talking about, especially in a pack as diverse as APEC -- from the world's economic powerhouses like the United States and Japan, to poor countries like Papua New Guinea.

It is heartening to note therefore that this disparity has been recognized by APEC leaders, even as they forge ahead with their free trade plan, by endorsing the group's economic cooperation programs. The point is often missed by the media. Prior to the leaders meeting APEC ministers issued a declaration on Asia-Pacific Cooperation, The Framework for Strengthening Economic Cooperation and Development. The recommendations were picked up in the leaders' declaration.

Since the point was put eloquently by Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas in Manila over the weekend, we feel it merits repeating it here. Alatas described trade facilitation, and liberalization and economic cooperation as the three wheels of APEC's tricycle. "Without this cooperation, the APEC tricycle would move forward with one wheel missing, and thus would not be able to move into the next millennium at the intended speed, or worse, not even reach the gate of the 21st Century."