Open forum to discuss APEC future path

JAKARTA (JP): Economists, businessmen, scholars and officials will gather at a one-day open discussion at the Dai-Ichi Hotel here on Nov.14 to discuss the future direction of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

The open forum, to be held under the theme Where do we go from here, is being organized jointly by the Indonesian National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation (Incpec) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas and his South Korean counterpart Han Sung-Joo are scheduled to deliver keynote addresses at the opening session.

The first session on free trade in the Pacific will feature C. Fred Bergsten, Director of the Institute for International Economics of the U.S., and Ross Garnaut, Head of the Department of Economics, the Australian National University, as the main speakers.

Rong-I Wu, President of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research and Mari Pangestu, the coordinator of PECC Trade Policy Forum, will discuss trade and investment facilitation in the second session.

The topic of APEC and development cooperation will be discussed by Ippel Yamazawa of the Hitotsubahsi University of Tokyo and Suhadi Mangkusuwondo, Vice Chairman of the Trade and Management Development Institute, Jakarta.

Hadi Soesastro, CSIS Executive Director, and Lee Yuan, Deputy Director of the Institute for Policy Studies, Singapore, will discuss institutional framework for APEC in the last session.

CSIS, founded in 1971, is an independent, non-profit research organization which conducts policy-oriented studies on both domestic and international affairs.

Incpec is the Indonesian Member Committee of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), which was founded in 1980 as a non-governmental organization of scholars, businessmen and officials to promote economic cooperation in the Pacific Basin.(vin)