RI urging to narrow disparity among members

JAKARTA (JP): As the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum moves to further liberalize trade within the Asia-Pacific region, Indonesia is calling on the advanced and industrialized countries to help narrow the disparity between the rich and poor member countries.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas, on the eve of the APEC ministerial meeting, said on Monday that the developing member countries in the forum should be given the chance to develop.

"Under the spirit of partnership and shared responsibility, we expect the developed countries to give the developing countries the opportunities to improve their economies so the gap can be narrowed," Alatas said in a written address at a discussion on the APEC forum organized by the ruling Golkar party last Monday.

The APEC forum could be divided into four different groups in terms of the stages of their economic development. The most advance two are the United States and Japan. Then there are three established industrialized countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and four newly industrialized countries, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and nine developing countries Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Papua New Guinea, Chile and Mexico.

Alatas, whose paper was read by Director General for ASEAN National Secretariat Rahardjo, said any cooperation within APEC must be on the basis of equality, justice, mutual respect, and mutual benefit.

This means developing countries should have the opportunity to catch up with the others countries and become the next, newly industrialized economies by the year 2000, he said.

"This goal can only be achieved with full support from the developed countries grouped in APEC," Alatas said.

The APEC ministerial meeting, which opens on Friday, is slated to discuss further measures to liberalize trade within the region. The developing member countries within APEC, however, are wary of any attempt to speed up the process in view of the still wide disparity in the development stages within the group.

APEC's Eminent Persons Group, in its report presented before the Jakarta meeting, is calling on the forum to move to establish a free trade area by the year 2020, if not before.

Marzuki Usman, chairman of the Indonesian Economists' Association, said in the discussion that Indonesia must work hard to be able to reap the benefits from the planned trade liberalization measures.

Advantage

Marzuki observed that the neighboring business communities, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, seem more prepared than Indonesia in taking advantage of the trade liberalization measures.

"A drawback for the business community in Indonesia is their lack of experience in international businesses," he said.

Marzuki said Indonesia should not be discouraged by this.

Both the government, and private sector, should work hand in hand to deal with the challenge and take full advantage of the business opportunities presented through APEC.

Indonesia can reap many benefits, including chances to boost its exports, to reduce production costs as a result of tariff cuts, expand the variety of products in accordance with the development of domestic and international markets, and to obtain the transfer of technology, information and management.

During the discussion Sri Edi Swasono, an economist from the National Development Planning Board, cast doubts over the mutual benefit of the trade liberation.

He argued that only developed countries would benefit from the agreement.

Indonesia, as the host of the APEC meetings, should steer the forum to formulate concepts beneficial for Indonesia as well as other developing countries.

"Don't just follow the world trend," he said.

Swasono warned that the developed Western countries are pushing for trade liberalization only for their own benefit.(sim)