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.