APEC's 'down payment' on free trade pledge prepared
APEC's 'down payment' on free trade pledge prepared
By Endy M. Bayuni
OSAKA, Japan (JP): Eighteen countries of the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum have gathered here for their
annual meeting, beginning today, to make a "down payment" on a
free trade pledge their leaders made exactly a year and one day
ago in the Indonesian city of Bogor.
The two-day ministerial meeting will discuss how each member
plans to go about liberalizing their trade and investment sectors
to meet the deadlines on regional free trade. The deadlines were
set out in the Nov. 15, 1994, Bogor Declaration -- 2010 for
developed economies and 2020 for developing economies.
There will not be any concerted or binding trade
liberalization measures set out here in Osaka. Each country will
just give details of its plan on freeing trade between now and
the coming years.
The advanced countries have warned that they will insist on
"comparability" to make sure that everyone is deregulating at
almost the same pace.
The road to Osaka has not been an easy one.
Since the Bogor meeting, APEC's senior officials have held
five meetings -- in Fukuoka, Sapporo, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and
finally Osaka early this week -- to draw up an "Action Agenda For
the Implementation of the Bogor Declaration", the document that
is expected to be endorsed by their ministers tomorrow.
One of the strongest points of contention in the run-up to
Osaka is whether or not agriculture could be exempted from the
trade liberalization measure as sought by host Japan, South
Korea, China and Taiwan.
These four countries are asking for special treatment for what
they consider a "politically sensitive" sector. The United States
and Australia, supported by the other 12 members including
Indonesia, are opposed to any kind of exception.
Compromise
Senior officials meeting here for the last time yesterday were
working on a compromise over the issue, allowing "flexibility"
within the agreed timeframe, thus supposedly paving the way for
their ministers today.
Conference sources, however, said any compromise struck by the
senior officials is likely to be a fragile one and ministers from
the hard-line countries are likely to ask for stronger
commitments on the liberalization of the farm sector from APEC.
Indonesia has a special stake in seeing a successful
conference here, for the Bogor Declaration was something that
many have attributed to the leadership and vision of President
Soeharto.
Indonesia's chief delegate, Coordinating Minister for Industry
and Trade Hartarto was not pessimistic despite the polarization
over the farm issue.
"I think it is only to be expected that there were to be
problems. We had the same thing in Bogor last year," Hartarto
said on arrival here on Tuesday.
The annual sixth APEC ministerial meeting also involves their
foreign ministers as well as trade ministers.
The ministerial conference will be followed once again by an
APEC leaders meeting, their third after Seattle and Bogor in 1993
and 1994 respectively.
Again, as in the last two years, there is no set agenda for
the leaders' informal meeting, or a "retreat" as the APEC summits
have now come to be called, this time to be held at the Guest
House of the 17th Century Osaka Castle. The leaders are expected
to iron out any problems that their ministers cannot overcome.
APEC is a loose regional economic consultative body founded
six years ago. It now comprises 18 members -- Australia, Brunei,
Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines,
Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.
Indonesia came to Osaka well prepared.
Last May, the government introduced a sweeping economic
deregulation package, bringing down more import barriers and
slashing import tariffs in virtually all sectors, with pledges of
more cuts between now and 2003.
The "May Package" as it has come to be known, will be
Indonesia's down payment, officials in Jakarta said earlier.
Indonesia, or rather President Soeharto, has a personal
interest in seeing that the Osaka meeting succeeds in
establishing a blueprint to free trade based on the Bogor
Declaration, which many in APEC attributed to President
Soeharto's statesmanship and leadership.
Officials familiar with APEC's processes said agriculture
protection is the least of Indonesia's worry because the
government subsidy in this sector has been enjoyed by consumers
rather than farmers, unlike in Japan and South Korea where
farmers are politically powerful.
Flexibility
If flexibility is indeed agreed on here, then Indonesia will
likely take advantage of this opportunity to slow down the
liberalization of its services sector.
While the row over the farm sector has stolen most of the APEC
headlines in the run-up to Osaka, Indonesia is expected to draw
the conference's attention to another issue pledged in Bogor
which it considers just as important as free trade, if not more
so, for Indonesia and other developing countries: development
cooperation.
Officials in Jakarta have pointed out that trade
liberalization, development cooperation and trade facilitation
are three inseparable pillars that would ensure that developing
countries would be ready to compete on par with developed
countries in the year 2020.
"Let's remember that Seattle in 1993 provided the vision,
Bogor in 1994 the common resolve, so we hope that here in Osaka
we will come up with an action agenda. The final objective of
regional cooperation is to achieve prosperity for its members,"
Hartarto said.