Busan roadmap to the Bogor goals

Busan roadmap to the Bogor goals

Romeo A. Reyes
Jakarta

Roadmaps have become fashionable as an instrument for
nurturing global and regional peace and economic cooperation. The
most famous is the roadmap guiding the peace process between
Israel and Palestine, albeit struggling in its implementation.
Many roadmaps for regional economic cooperation have been adopted
by ASEAN to help realize its vision of an ASEAN Economic
Community by 2020, including those for accelerated economic
integration in 11 priority sectors by 2010.

The latest is the Busan Roadmap to the Bogor Goals endorsed by
21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders at their 13th
Summit in Busan, Republic of Korea on Nov. 18-19. The Busan
Roadmap was produced in the context of a mid-term stock-take
(MTST) commissioned by APEC Leaders to determine how far APEC has
moved towards achieving the goal of free and open trade and
investment in Asia-Pacific.

Specifically, APEC's target is to achieve free flow of goods,
services and investment by 2010 for developed economies and by
2020 for developing economies. The Leaders acknowledged that it
was ambitious but expressed determination to realize it as a
demonstration of APEC's leadership in fostering global trade and
investment liberalization.

The MTST disclosed that average applied tariffs of APEC
economies have been reduced from 16.9 percent in 1989 to 5.5
percent in 2004. APEC's performance towards achieving free and
open trade is not unimpressive at all considering the non-binding
character of its economic cooperation measures. Achieving its
target is definitely ambitious but not altogether impossible, at
least with respect to trade. APEC's average applied tariff is now
only slightly higher than the maximum of 5 percent for ASEAN,
which is targeted for outright removal by 2010 in 11 priority
sectors.

Without attributing any causality, the MTST also reported that
intra-APEC trade more than tripled for the same period. Its share
of APEC's GDP increased from 13.8 percent in 1989 to 18.5 percent
in 2004. It should be noted in this regard that APEC represents
almost 50 percent of world trade and almost 60 percent of global
GDP. Good progress made in APEC's trade liberalization would
undoubtedly reflect significantly on global trade liberalization.

Noteworthy in this year's summit of APEC Economic Leaders is a
separate statement on WTO negotiations, citing the ongoing Doha
Development Round as a crucial component of the global
partnership to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. In
particular it made a strong call on the forthcoming Hong Kong
Ministerial Meeting to break the impasse in agricultural market
access negotiations to unblock those in non-agricultural products
and services. Interestingly, the Leaders made a call for another
roadmap for completion of the Round in 2006!

Unlike other multilateral arrangements, e.g. WTO and ASEAN,
whose agreements are binding, APEC explicitly recognized itself
as a "forum" and its goals as "pledges" in the Busan declaration.
In line with the non-binding nature of APEC's cooperation
measures, the Busan Roadmap placed more emphasis on cooperation
measures taken in the context of other multilateral trading
arrangements.

The roadmap calls on APEC economies to redouble their
collective efforts to advance the WTO Doha Development Round
negotiations. It would rely on "high-quality" Regional Trade
Agreements (RTAs) and bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), and
develop a comprehensive business facilitation program through the
Busan Business Agenda.

In addition, it will strengthen its own voluntary individual
and collective actions for advancing APEC's trade and investment
liberalization through improved transparency and accessibility to
business.

As a forum, it is necessary and understandable for APEC to
rely on global, sub-regional and bilateral arrangements dealing
with trade and investment liberalization, as reflected in the
Busan Roadmap to the Bogor Goals.

The real value added by APEC is the collective political will,
leadership, and commitment of 21 APEC Leaders that could be put
to bear on global, regional and bilateral negotiations for
binding trade and investment liberalization agreements. With that
value added, the Bogor Goals, while remaining ambitious, can
still be achieved.

The writer is former Senior Adviser, ASEAN-UNDP Partnership
Facility. The views expressed herein are personal and do not
necessarily reflect those of ASEAN or UNDP.