China, S. Korea may shine in APEC meeting

China, S. Korea may shine in APEC meeting

JAKARTA (JP): China and South Korea are expected to become
champions in bolstering the trade liberalization process at the
forthcoming meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) forum in Manila next month, says an economist.

Mari Pangestu, the chief economist of the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, said yesterday that given the infancy
of APEC, the organization still needs a number of champions to
expedite liberalization and to prove its credibility to the
outside world.

"In the next meeting, beside host Philippines, South Korea and
China are also expected to become champions or heroes," she said
in a seminar on trade and investment organized by the Asian
Region International Association of Cooperating Organization.

Besides the host, other economies contributed to trade
liberalization in previous meetings.

In the Osaka meeting last year, Japan as host country adopted
comprehensive principles such as not allowing the permanent
exclusion of agriculture from the liberalization schedules.

In the meeting, other economies were asked to provide initial
action plans and several of these were quite bold such as those
provided by Indonesia and China, Mari said.

She, however, doubted if the Manila meeting would result in a
significant breakthrough, given the fact that most APEC members
were still divided over the need to transform the relaxed
organization into a negotiating and formal trade grouping.

"One should not expect too much from Manila this year.
Otherwise, disappointment is in store," Mari said, adding that an
important contribution from Manila this year would be to actually
set out in a concrete fashion the template for enacting
liberalization and facilitation.

She said it would be possible to see parts of it embellished
and with clear time frames for some economies, but there would
still be gaps.

The slow progress in the liberalization process will be caused
by slow decision-making in the organization, she said.

In APEC, the liberalization process is not only based on a
voluntary basis but also on unilateral action in accordance with
plans, and will also depend on the priorities of respective
member countries. It means that the agreement within APEC should
be reached through a consultative process and should be based on
consensus.

Mari said that such a decision-making process was adopted from
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) but it had
been widely criticized because with such a way, progress can only
be as fast as its slowest member.

"One of the main issues faced by OPEC at present is how to
best formulate the action plans and fulfill the objectives and
goals it has set out," she told the seminar, which also featured
several other speakers, including Ippei Yamazawa, a senior
economists at Japan's Hitotsubashi University, Edgardo Campos, a
World Bank economist, and Anwar Nasution, an economist at
University of Indonesia.

Yamazawa said in the seminar that the liberalization process
in APEC should be consistent with multilateral liberalization
principles adopted by the World Trade Organization.

He said that APEC members should extend their liberalization
to members and nonmembers on a Most Favored Nations basis.

Yamazawa suggested that APEC should talk with the European
Union and encourage members to join in a similar accelerated
implementation of the Uruguay Round Table outcome.

At a later stage, they should invite the EU to jointly
initiate a new round of global liberalization with the WTO, he
said.

APEC is comprised of 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. (hen)