APEC stresses relevance amid doubts

APEC stresses relevance amid doubts

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (Reuters): Caught off-guard by a backlash
against globalization, the Asia-Pacific's top regional grouping
is trying to rebrand itself as a friend of the poor and downplay
its role as a champion of free trade.

Officials of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) forum, in Brunei for their leaders' annual summit (this)
week, say the institution must throw off its image as a tool of
big business if it is to survive.

They say growing doubts about the merits of globalization --
the creation of a single world marketplace without tariffs or
other barriers to business -- threaten to put APEC seriously out
of step with many of its people.

So the grouping is playing up its role as a vehicle for
development and stressing the impact its program of education,
training and technical cooperation is having on the poor and
dispossessed in developing countries.

"APEC is not really about committees, conventions or trade
summits, it is about making a real difference to real people's
lives," Thailand's Economic Affairs Department Director-General
Kobsak Chutikul told a news conference on Saturday.

"The ultimate objective must be development -- making people's
lives better in all sections of our societies."

Established in 1989 as a forum to promote business and trade
across the Pacific Rim, APEC has always had what its officials
call "three pillars" as its core objective.

It aims to speed up trade and investment liberalization, help
businesses take advantage of this liberalization by improving
communications and trading links and it promotes economic and
technical cooperation -- "Ecotech" in APEC jargon.

Almost all attention has focused on the first of these aims --
the promotion of free trade through globalization -- due to the
enormous size of the APEC region.

APEC encompasses two-thirds of the world's population, 60
percent of world output and almost half the planet's trade.

The forum has also been used by the United States and other
developed countries as the main tool to advance the cause of
globalization and open developing markets to their products.

"APEC is the single most important regional institution in the
Asia-Pacific," a senior U.S. official told Reuters.

APEC has adopted the goal of opening trade and investment in
its developed economies by 2010 and developing nations by 2020.

The APEC talks in Auckland in September 1999 were the final
springboard for preparations for the World Trade Organization
talks in Seattle in December with much time devoted to detailed
preparations of an Asia-Pacific agenda for a new trade round.

But suddenly the climate changed.

Seattle erupted in a torrent of protests against free trade
with demonstrators challenging the right of developed nations to
force open, as they saw it, the markets of poorer nations.

Since the WTO talks collapsed and a new round of global trade
talks was put on hold, opposition to globalization has become
more fashionable. Within APEC, arguments against free trade that
were previously suppressed have emerged.

Malaysia, always reluctant to open some of its own markets and
suspicious of the motives of the United States, has openly
questioned the benefits of an early new round.

"I have very serious doubts about anything shaping out of
Brunei, because there is not yet any sign of a credible agenda
that is of interest to both developed and developing countries,"
Malaysian International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz
told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.

Although APEC leaders are almost certain to pledge support for
a new round of global trade talks in their final communique on
Nov. 16, much of the emphasis will be on other areas and will
stress the value of the grouping's work in human terms.

The grouping will remain committed to free trade, but argue
that it sees this as a means to an end: improving access to goods
and services and opportunities for its people.

In a glossy booklet distributed in Brunei this week, APEC
announces 300 Ecotech projects across the region tackling social
and environmental problems in many of its poorest members states.

They include support for women's issues, education centers,
workshops to train civil servants, cooperatives to help finance
agricultural projects, conservation and environmental projects.
Peru's ambassador to APEC, Elard Escala, says APEC has not
changed, but it is adjusting its emphasis to put more stress on
the impact it can have on the citizens of the Pacific Rim.

"We believe this 'third pillar' is absolutely crucial," he
said. "Without this we believe we cannot reduce the disparities
between the developing and the developed world."

APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong
Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New
Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia,
Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
(Chris Johnson)