APEC agenda still vague
APEC agenda still vague
Two years after setting its lofty goal of lifting all trade and investment barriers by 2020, a group of 18 Asia-Pacific economies is facing the toughest test yet of its free-trade mettle.
After talking about grand plans for a virtually borderless economy from North America to Southeast Asia, members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum are to submit detailed plans Sunday on implementing that vision, beginning Jan 1.
This should be the most concrete step to date for APEC members. It represents one more kilometer in a journey that began in 1993 in Seattle, the United States, with the vision of an Asia-Pacific community.
In 1994, the sojourn led to Bogor, Indonesia, where the leaders set the 2020 deadline for free trade. The following year in Osaka, Japan saw an agreement on an action plan.
Extracting from its members bold schedules in reducing tariff rates and opening markets has not been easy, especially since the process is voluntary, and coincided with elections in countries like the United States and Thailand.
Thus, Philippine President Fidel Ramos, host of this year's APEC meetings, sent out letters last week to 17 fellow leaders asking them to make substantial commitments to open markets in a bid to ensure the meeting does not remain an annual talkfest.
He wants APEC members to present bold tariff reduction plans or individual action plans, to be collectively called the "Manila Action Plan For APEC 1996".
"This will serve as APEC's road map to the 21st century," Ramos said. However, the challenge does not lie only in the free- trade momentum, which businessmen would like to speed up and activists say is already proceeding at too fast a pace.
The seven-year-old APEC faces growing pressure to go beyond trade and investment as its driving force, and to heed the concerns of developing countries undergoing free-trade pains.
The tug-of-war over APEC's future direction is due in part to a membership that includes developed and developing economies with different state policies. APEC has 40 percent of the world's population, accounts for 56 percent of world production and 46 percent of merchandise trade.
Buffeted by different -- at times, conflicting -- pressures, APEC's agenda and identity are far from complete at this point. Debates about its priorities and pace show that many questions remain unresolved, and will likely remain so for some time yet.
-- The Nation, Bangkok