APEC sets criteria for new members
By Prapti Widinugraheni
MANILA (JP): Senior officials of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) yesterday submitted a recommendation to their ministers on the question of admission of new members into the forum.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Federico Macaranas said the APEC ministerial meeting, which starts today, was expected to come up with a "definite position" on how to deal with new applicants.
Speaking at the end of a two-day senior officials meeting, Macaranas said the officials identified four interrelated areas to be considered in determining future members.
These are the lifting of a three-year moratorium later this month; the decision on a set of criteria for applicants; the decision on when the new applicants can join the forum; and the decision on which applicants are eligible for membership.
"With these four different areas of discussion we were able to go through all the difficulties... in a consensus mode, so we are pleased we did not come up with options for ministers but rather with one recommendation," said Macaranas, who chaired the senior officials meeting.
Eleven countries, including Vietnam, Peru and Russia, have applied to become members of the present 18-member forum.
Other countries that have applied for membership in the forum are India, Macau, Mongolia, Pakistan, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Panama and Ecuador.
Earlier this week, ministers of the seven-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said they were "committed to an early entry of Vietnam".
Six members of ASEAN -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- are part of the forum. Vietnam joined the association last year.
Apart from the six ASEAN members, APEC also groups Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.
The ASEAN ministers also "expressed support" for granting membership to Russia and Peru.
Macaranas acknowledged that among the issues discussed by senior officials and submitted to the ministers was an additional membership criterion requiring applicants to present "shadow individual action plans" as a sign of their intention to follow APEC's goals of free trade by 2020.
The Manila Action Plan which is to be endorsed by APEC ministers will include the individual action plans (IAPs) of each member defining in detail how they intend to achieve this goal.
Soemadi Brotodiningrat, the leader of the Indonesian delegation to the senior officials meeting, contended however that requiring applicants to present "shadow IAPs" was unworkable because "you cannot interfere with (the economic policies of) a sovereignty".
He said more meaningful consideration would be the economic linkages of an applicant to APEC, because this aspect could be measured by the applicant's trade volume with and value to APEC economies.