APEC set to expand secretariat

JAKARTA (JP): The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is set to revamp its secretariat in Singapore to support its expanding activities.

Indonesia's Wisber Loeis, the chairman of the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM), told journalists here yesterday that a task force in charge of studying how best to expand the secretariat would be set up soon.

Indonesia has been appointed to head the task force. The person who will chair it will be decided after the APEC ministers meet here on Friday and Saturday to approve the plan proposed by Japan.

The three-day SOM, which began on Tuesday at the Jakarta Convention Center, is attended by 200 delegates from the APEC member economies.

APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States. Chile will become a member shortly.

"The task force will come up with recommendations on how to make the new secretariat more effective and efficient," he said.

Official sources said the task force is expected to submit its recommendations to an APEC senior officials meeting in the middle of next year.

APEC established its secretariat in Singapore in February 1993. It is headed by an executive director who serves for one year. The deputy executive director is appointed to assume the chair the following year.

The first executive director of the secretariat was ambassador William Bodde from the United States. He was succeeded by Rusli Noor from Indonesia this year. Next year, the top spot goes to Shojiro Imanishi from Japan.

Singapore has been funding the secretariat from its inception and will continue to do so until the end of next year. After that, the APEC economies will have to decide who will finance it.

The secretariat's staff includes professionals from APEC's member economies and a number of local support staff.

Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines have no professional staff in the secretariat.

The acknowledgement by senior officials of the need to strengthen the secretariat is a far cry from the early days of the forum, when many countries frowned on the prospect of the institutionalization of the forum.

Many delegates now argue that the enlargement of the secretariat is a necessity, but feel that does not mean the institutionalization of the forum.

Nevertheless, they acknowledge that as the forum matures, some form of institutionalization will be unavoidable.

"We are beginning to grapple with the question of how to support APEC," said Tony Miller, head of the Hong Kong delegation to the SOM.

He added that APEC's profile and activities are expanding continuously and thus the secretariat "has been under increasing strain simply because of the larger range of issues we are now dealing with."

Saodah Syahruddin, Indonesia's director for economic relations among developing countries at the foreign ministry, said the SOM has recommended that each member economy have a representative at the secretariat.

"Each member country will be required to contribute to the funding of the secretariat," she said.

Enterprises

Yesterday's SOM also endorsed the ad hoc policy-level group on small and medium enterprises which was recommended at last month's APEC ministerial meeting in Osaka, Japan.

The group will serve as a forum for member economies to strengthen policy dialog, assist in enhancing the development of small and medium-scale enterprises and ensure that their development is properly addressed within the APEC process.

Its activities will include providing members with opportunities to exchange information, views, experiences and analysis.

The SOM also prepared a joint ministerial statement, the agenda of the ministerial meeting and a report to the ministers.

Wisber, who is the director general for foreign economic relations of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that senior officials would continue their meeting into the night "to put the loose ends together". (team)

ASEAN -- Page 4

City -- Page 12