Commitment will save APEC, says Keating

JAKARTA (JP): Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating warned yesterday that unless Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries submitted positive free-trade action plans at the upcoming APEC ministerial meeting, the group would lose its credibility.

"Unless the individual action plans submitted in Manila are ambitious and reflect a genuine will on the part of the APEC governments to live up to their Bogor commitments, unless the leaders address the most serious problems facing the region, APEC will begin to lose credibility," Keating said.

He was addressing the 27th congress of the International Association of Financial Executives Institutes here on globalization, regionalism and policy challenges for the Asia Pacific region.

The 18 APEC countries must submit their individual action plans, detailing measures to reduce trade and investment barriers, at the APEC ministerial meeting in Manila later this month.

At the APEC Bogor summit here in 1994, APEC leaders agreed to remove trade and tariff barriers in the Asia Pacific region by 2010 for developed countries and 2020 for developing countries.

Keating said if the Manila meeting failed to comply with the commitments on free trade made in Bogor, APEC would lose its ability to influence the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Singapore in December.

Keating, an architect of APEC, said APEC could also fail if it expanded its membership.

"I want to be quite clear about this. In my view we will lose APEC if the membership expands now, or if it ever expands too much," he said.

Diffuse

He said if APEC expanded it would lose its potential because its agenda would become too diffuse, and that its focus on links between East Asia and North America would be lost. He said that APEC would then conveniently split into separate sub-groups.

"With 18 participants now, the leaders forum is already near the maximum possible for free interchange. With larger numbers, the meetings will become proforma discussions with preordained outcomes. Leaders will over time, and quite a short time at that, lose their motivation for meeting," he said.

APEC's underlying purpose is simple but deeply important, Keating said: "It is, first, to help create the conditions which will enable Asia Pacific countries to continue to develop economically."

Its second purpose, he said, was to help its members deal with the consequences of that development. The third purpose was to maintain peace and security in East Asia, in part by helping to prevent a split between North America and East Asia.

Keating was replaced by Prime Minister John Howard when the Labor Party lost Australia's March elections. (bnt)