Improving business role in APEC to be discussed

Improving business role in APEC to be discussed

MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP): Representatives of Australian and
New Zealand industry will meet here this week to discuss a
greater role for business in the development of the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) process.

The meeting precedes next month's inaugural meeting in Jakarta
of the Asia Pacific Business Network, which will bring together
business leaders from APEC countries to seek closer cooperation
between business and government in the APEC process.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Harold
Clough said Sunday that the network would specifically address
the issues of reducing all forms of trade barriers, harmonizing
practices affecting business and, in particular, investment.

It would also discuss how APEC could provide regionally for
the improved development and networking of small to medium
enterprises.

"In addition, the meeting will examine how business considers
APEC fits into the context of other regional bloc development and
the overall global trading and investment climate," Clough said
in a statement.

He also endorsed a call last week for greater business
involvement in APEC by Prime Minister Paul Keating who said the
European Community was very much driven in its early days by
business demands for freer trade and investment.

"To date, business has been far less influential in the APEC
process, with the running being taken almost entirely by
governments," Clough said.

APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Hong Kong,
Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New
Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the
United States, and, from November 1994, Chile.

Keating in February 1993 proposed that APEC, with a population
of two billion producing 40 percent of world exports, integrate
as a common market, harmonizing trade and investment rules and
industry standards.

Free trade

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Keating was quoted yesterday as
saying that Asia-Pacific countries should lead the world in
freeing trade and push trade liberalization measures through
APEC.

In an interview with The Australian newspaper published
yesterday, Keating said APEC could be used to force the European
Union (EU) back into negotiations for freer global trade.

Keating said the formation of APEC and its talk of freer trade
had forced the EU towards the successful conclusion of the
Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT).

"The only thing that will get them to another round is if they
think we're developing the modalities for freer trade ourselves,"
Keating told the newspaper. "They wouldn't have come to the last
round without APEC."

"I don't think the Europeans would have come in the end if
they didn't think we were up to no good down here," he said.

The newspaper said Keating wanted the APEC heads of government
meeting, to be held in Bogor, Indonesia, in November to embrace
aggressively a trade liberalization agenda for the region.

"This means moving from the trade facilitation issues pursued
at last year's APEC meeting to trade liberalization issues in
Indonesia in November," the newspaper said.

Keating also reiterated his support for simply freer trade
within APEC rather than an exclusive free trade block.

Asked if APEC was pursuing an exclusive free trade bloc,
Keating said: "No, we are after freer trade." He added he was
confident that APEC would change its name at the Indonesia
leaders' meeting to the Asia-Pacific Economic Community.

The Australian also reported that a further APEC leaders'
meeting had been penciled in for Japan next year.