Open forum to discuss APEC future path

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)