APEC reviews role of secretariat ahead of annual meeting in Osaka

APEC reviews role of secretariat ahead of annual meeting in Osaka

By Peter Starr

FUKUOKA, Japan (AFP): A key issue facing the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum as the group approaches its seventh annual meeting in Osaka this year, is what to do with its modest secretariat in Singapore.

The current arrangements for the secretariat, agreed by APEC ministers at their fourth annual meeting in Bangkok in 1992, expire at the end of this year and are now under review for the November gathering in Osaka.

Under the Bangkok agreement, APEC members have seconded about a dozen professional staff to the Singapore secretariat, including current executive director Shojiro Imanishi, a Japanese diplomat, and his deputy Armando Madamba, a diplomat from the Philippines, the host country of next year's meeting.

Each member covers the salary of seconded staff, but Singapore foots the bill for an additional 14 support staff members, in addition to utility charges and the cost of maintaining buildings and office equipment.

The APEC secretariat's budget has meanwhile been running at around two million dollars a year, funded by all 18 members on the basis of wealth with Japan and the United States contributing the biggest portions.

While Singapore has offered to build a permanent headquarters for APEC next year, APEC ministers nevertheless decided at their last meeting in Jakarta last November to set up a task force to review the whole issue.

The task force, headed by Wisber Loeis, the Indonesian foreign ministry's director general for foreign economic relations, presented initial findings to a meeting of senior APEC officials in Fukuoka this week, the first of three rounds of high-level talks before the November summit in Osaka.

The findings were partly based on a survey showing that some of the 10 members who responded -- Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand -- would like to see the secretariat playing a wider role in the future.

According to a summary of replies to the task force survey, some members "felt the secretariat could take on new roles, such as data management and research analysis," with links to universities and think-tanks.

But the Singapore set-up should require only a "modest increase in staff" with outside consultants and specialists hired on contract if necessary. How the staff should be recruited, however, seemed to be a focal point of divergence between the various respondents.

Most supported the current system for appointing directors and deputy directors for one year -- a representative seconded from the current chair and another seconded from the host of the following year's annual meeting.

"However, some members felt that, in order to ensure continuity, there may be a need to appoint a professional administrator, recruited openly on a three or five-year term," the summary said.

Another option was recruiting the deputy director through open recruitment for three years while one member felt both of the two top executives should be appointed from the open market.

As for the rest of the professional staff, the task force said, several respondents suggested a "mix of seconded and openly-recruited" employees for positions requiring technical expertise.

"Others felt that the present practice of seconding professional staff to the secretariat should continue and consideration be given for appointing consultants to undertake specific assignments," it said.

"One member felt that the professional staff should be appointed through open recruitment."

The survey found that most respondents "had difficulty in providing an adequate answer" to the question about how big the budget should be.

"A number of member economies felt that the budget could be increased moderately to reflect the new needs of the secretariat, for example funding of locally-recruited staff in 1996. One member felt that, in the short term, the budget would not need to go beyond US$ 1.2 million."

The eight members which apparently failed to respond to the survey in time were Brunei, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States.