Business leaders to prepare APEC free-trade blueprint

Business leaders to prepare APEC free-trade blueprint

SINGAPORE (AFP): Asia-Pacific business leaders are to meet in
Hawaii next week to launch work on a blueprint to hasten trade
and investment liberalization in the region, officials said here
yesterday.

The blueprint would incorporate strategies to open up
businesses in designated areas such as infrastructure, small and
medium enterprises and human resources development, and finance
and investment.

The leaders from the newly-established business advisory
council of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum
would also devise measures such as customs procedures to quicken
the flow of cross-border business at their Honolulu meeting on
Aug. 17-to-18, officials said.

The APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) was inaugurated in
Manila in June to advise on the implementation of the so-called
action agenda to free up trade and investment by 2010 for
industrialized economies and 2020 for developing economies within
APEC.

The agenda was adopted by APEC leaders at their summit in
Osaka last November when they also endorsed the setting up of
ABAC as a permanent business advisory forum to make the seven-
year-old APEC more relevant to business.

"This is a meeting of very senior level business leaders who
expect to come up with some hard-hitting recommendations," Dough
Ryan, ABAC coordinator at the Singapore-based APEC secretariat,
told AFP.

They could seek greater business sector participation in
infrastructure development projects, issuance of an APEC-wide
visa to facilitate the movement of business persons and a bigger
role for small and medium enterprises to spur economic growth in
the region.

Ryan said ABAC's recommendations would be compiled in a report
to be considered by the APEC leaders at their summit in Manila in
November.

"The Hawaii meeting will give ABAC members the opportunity to
discuss in depth the key issues they intend to raise when they
meet with APEC economic leaders in November," he said.

ABAC is now chaired by Roberto Romulo, chairman of the
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, and co-chaired by
Minoru Murofushi, president of Itochu Corp. of Japan, and Dorothy
Riddle, president of Service Growth Consultants Inc. of Canada.

At their first meeting, the business leaders had decided to
focus on five areas, including infrastructure, finance and
investment, small and medium enterprises and human resources
development, and the facilitation of cross-border flows.

"The fifth area is how the sense of community in the Asia-
Pacific region can be deepened -- how involvement in the APEC
process can be broadened and how awareness of APEC can be
expanded -- so that it can be a reality to the broader
communities within APEC," a forum statement said.

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