Soeharto urges faster trade liberalization

Soeharto urges faster trade liberalization

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto opened the Sixth Ministerial
Meeting of APEC yesterday on a note of hope for an accelerated
process of trade and investment liberalization among its 18
member economies.

"Should we decide to take further steps to liberalize trade
and investment among us, we should confirm it in the APEC
Economic Leaders' meeting on Nov.15 at Bogor," the 73-year old
President, and this year's APEC chairman, told the foreign and
trade ministers at the State Palace.

The two-day ministerial conference of 18 economies that
account for around 50 percent of the world's output and trade was
preceded by working group, committee and senior officials
meetings since Nov.3.

APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong
Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New
Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Chinese Taipei,
Thailand and the United States.

Soeharto devoted a great portion of his opening address to the
crucial importance of trade and investment liberalization, which
he feels will give more substance to the five-year old Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

He noted that economic dynamism in the Asia- Pacific region
over the past few decades has been generated by trade and
investment liberalization.

"Therefore, we will continue to promote and facilitate the
flow of investment and trade for ourselves and for other
regions," added the President, who is also the Chairman of the
108-member Non-Aligned Movement.

He reaffirmed the role of the open market system to
significantly improve the flow of international trade and
investment in the region.

"All these efforts have brought a level of economic growth
never achieved before to our region," added Soeharto. The
president has been hailed internationally for the massive
deregulation measures and sound macro-economic policies that have
fueled highly respectable economic growth in the world's fourth
most populous country.

He described how free and open trade has been encouraging
significant investment among APEC member themselves and from
investors in other regions.

"We should nurture these developments properly so as to ensure
the acceleration of trade growth in our region," said the
Indonesian President, currently in his sixth consecutive five-
year term.

Domination

Trade and investment liberalization will dominate the agenda
of the second APEC leaders meeting at Bogor on Tuesday. The main
topics of their talks on those issues are the recommendations
from the Eminent Persons Group and the Pacific Business Forum.

The Eminent Persons Group, in its second report to APEC
leaders which was presented to Soeharto in August, recommends
that APEC members adopt trade and investment liberalization fully
by the year 2020.

The Pacific Business Forum, the private sector think tank set
up last November by the APEC leaders themselves during their
first summit on Blake Island, the United States, came up with an
even bolder, more ambitious target--recommending free trade in
the region by the year 2010.

The President cautioned, however, that any cooperation within
APEC should take into account the diversity of economic
development among its members.

"We can overcome the diversity in APEC economies through
cooperation based on partnership," he said.

He also assured other countries outside the region that APEC
was never designed to evolve as an exclusive and closed trading
bloc.

Instead, he added, APEC members have adopted concrete measures
to reach the establishment of open, free and fair global trade.

In this context, the President recalled the results of the
recent meeting of APEC trade ministers here last month when they
reaffirmed their strong commitment to having the speedy
ratification of the World Trade Organization.

Soeharto proudly informed the ministers that Indonesia itself,
by Law No.7/1994 of Nov.2, 1994, has ratified the establishment
of WTO which is scheduled to start functioning early next year to
replace the old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.(emb/vin)

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