Osaka deliverables
Osaka deliverables
Deliverables, down payments and action agenda are some of the
buzzwords that reflect the high expectations of the third forum
of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Osaka this
weekend. The great expectations are understandable, viewed from
the smooth process of the realization of the grand visions worked
out at the first forum in Seattle in November, 1993 into long-
term objectives as adopted in the Bogor Declaration issued at the
second leadership meeting in Indonesia last November.
Business organizations in the 18 member economies of the
seven-year-old regional forum have expressed great concern that
the momentum of cooperation within APEC could diminish if the
third meeting does not come out with a concrete action plan.
However, the task of the forthcoming forum will most likely be
extremely challenging if the progress in trade liberalization
achieved so far, after five rounds of meetings of senior
officials to prepare an action agenda, is anything to go by.
Similar to the main obstacle encountered within the
multilateral trade negotiations before the World Trade
Organization was concluded last year, farm trade has remained one
of the most contentious issues in the way of implementing free
trade. Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan, for example, have
requested exemption for sensitive sectors as agriculture. Most
other members are opposed to such treatment in case it spreads to
other sectors, thereby making any agreements to be concluded
rather meaningless.
We hope, though, that the farm trade issue does not bog down
the whole process of negotiations. Pragmatism will hopefully
reign in the process of negotiations. After all, the process of
trade liberalization should be a gradual one, conducted
unilaterally by each member at its own pace and in its own way.
Forcing clear target dates for all sectors in Osaka could be
detrimental to possible cooperation in other areas.
Right from the outset, when APEC was founded in Canberra in
November, 1989, the forum has been designed to be an overall
economic cooperation grouping. Of course, trade is the locomotive
of economy and should be placed on top of the agenda. Moreover,
when the APEC process was launched, the Uruguay Round of
multilateral trade negotiations remained uncertain and bogged
down in contentious farm trade issues. So making trade
liberalization the flagship of its movement at that time made a
lot of sense. But the Osaka meeting should not be wholly
preoccupied with the target setting for trade liberalization at
the expense of cooperation in other areas.
There are other areas which are no less important for
bolstering trade ties within APEC members, especially because
obstacles to trade ties are not limited only to tariffs and to
what is usually called non-tariff barriers. The agenda of trade
and investment facilitation which is also stipulated in the Bogor
Declaration is extremely important as well. In fact,
businesspeople in most member economies expect more immediate and
greater benefits from concrete measures to remove administrative
barriers to trade and investment. Some of the expected measures
are related to investment principles, the harmonization of
standards and procedures, and conformity with customs procedures,
transparency and discipline in the use of anti-dumping measures,
rules of origin, competition policies and procurement. All these
measures will significantly reduce transaction costs and will
facilitate investment, which in turn will bolster trade.
There are two other areas which are very important, especially
for the least developed members of APEC: economic and technical
cooperation; and infrastructure and human resource development.
If these areas of cooperation are ignored due to a preoccupation
with trade liberalization, the least developed members of APEC
may get the impression that APEC essentially serves mostly as a
tool for the developed economies to pry open the markets of the
least developed ones. Such an impression would surely slow down
the APEC process.