Business leaders upbeat on APEC after 2-day forum

Business leaders upbeat on APEC after 2-day forum

By Prapti Widinugraheni and Meidyatama Suryodiningrat

MANILA (JP): Business leaders from the Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) forum ended a two-day business forum here
Saturday with a renewed vision on APEC.

While acknowledging APEC's benefits for business, delegates
said they were responsible for building an "APEC community".

Kenneth Lindhorst, a delegate from United States-based AT&T,
said the APEC Business Forum (ABF) had helped businesspeople see
that each country in APEC could choose how far and how fast it
wanted to go.

"In APEC, every member economy still has its own sovereign
rights, but at the same time their governments are aware that
increasing cooperation is positive both for the government and
the business sector," he told The Jakarta Post.

A Filipino delegate, Jesus Estanislao, said the forum reminded
big business that APEC should also help small and medium
enterprises.

"The last thing (Philippine President Fidel Ramos) wants to
see is APEC being hijacked by big businesses," he said on Ramos'
speech to open the ABF.

Ramos told the executives on Friday that "the APEC vision is
about improving people's lives".

"Liberalizing and facilitating trade and investment alone
cannot do... We need to develop a culture for solving problems
together out of a deep sense of obligation to build a community
of APEC economies," he said.

APEC groups 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.

APEC aims to achieve regional free trade and investment,
setting 2010 and 2020 as deadlines for developed and developing
countries respectively.

Roberto Romulo, the chairman of the APEC Business Advisory
Council, said ABF helped businesspeople understand that APEC
"does indeed have a future".

"It will also make them realize that they must work hand in
hand with the government," he said.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who addressed the
forum's closing ceremony on Saturday, said it was "unrealistic
and grossly unfair" to coerce APEC's less-advanced member
economies to undertake liberalization measures at a pace and
manner "beyond their capacity".

"APEC must never result in poor member countries becoming more
and more dependent on richer members," he said.

APEC members' economies have been growing 7.6 percent yearly
on average. Trade within the region has grown about 87 percent in
the last five years, and its exports make up 44 percent of the
world's total.

Mahathir called for stronger development cooperation within
APEC, saying it had "not been given the attention it deserves".

"Liberalization alone will not succeed if it is not
accompanied by development cooperation," Mahathir said.

He said poorer economies could not be considered ready to
liberalize their markets until they had become exporters, and
were benefiting from their own raw materials.

"It is understandable that business executives are impatient
with the slow rate of progress in liberalization, harmonization
and cooperation, and want political leaders to share their sense
of urgency. Still business leaders must understand that political
leaders must do what is best for their respective economies as a
whole," Mahathir said.