Terrorism high in APEC agenda in Santiago

Terrorism high in APEC agenda in Santiago

On the second day of his visit to Indonesia, Chilean President
Ricardo Lagos Escobar gave a lecture on Thursday at the Centre
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), met with the
local business community and granted interviews to several
journalists, including The Jakarta Post. He spoke on various
issues, including trade relations between Chile and Indonesia and
the upcoming annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
summit in November, which will be hosted by the Chilean capital
of Santiago. Following are excerpts from the question and answer
session at CSIS and the interview.

Question: What are the main items on the APEC Summit agenda?
Answer: The major items, of course, are the issues of security
and trade. As far as trade is concerned, how can we improve trade
negotiations now? I think our trade negotiations need to have a
new follow-up and I would like to see if it is possible through
the next APEC meeting.

Given the current situation in world affairs, (the APEC
meeting will also discuss) the issues of terrorism and security:
how to fight terrorism and how to increase security.

So terrorism will be a major item?

The major item on the APEC agenda is an economic one. But
terrorists may affect the economy, may affect trade, may affect
everything. I mean the world is different after September 11,
2001. It's difficult to have a meeting without talking about
terrorism.

We already had a meeting in Chile on the issues of security
and trade. The questions that arose during the meeting were: Are
we going to increment the cost of trade because of security? Are
we going to have a special device at our ports or airports in
order to sell goods abroad? How are we going to be sure that
containers contain what it is supposed to?

At the previous APEC meetings, participants were mostly
economists and businesspeople, while the participation of non-
governmental organizations was minimal. As a former socialist
movement leader, what is your plan for the next APEC meeting in
regards the participation of NGOs?

It is true that APEC meetings are normally attended by
economists and businesspeople. I understand that more and more in
this kind of meeting, some kind of participation must be given to
the so-called non-governmental institutions, whatever they are.

You just met with the Indonesian business community. Did you
offer them business opportunities in Chile?

Chile is trying to become a sort of bridge between Asian and
Latin American countries. We are improving our ports, we are
improving our infrastructure facilities, we are improving our
telecommunication facilities. Therefore, we are in a position to
offer our services in order to use Chile as a platform to other
Latin American countries. Given the free trade agreements that
Chile has, it is possible for Asian or Indonesian companies to
expand their presence in Chile toward the rest of the Latin
American countries.

You said that Indonesia and Chile can cooperate, among others,
in gas. Could you elaborate on this?

You have a plenty of energy resources. You have agreed to
provide gas to the west coast of the U.S.A. I think it's possible
for you to also provide gas to the Latin American countries. The
demand for energy in the region is quite substantial. We can also
cooperate in the area of oil. Our state-owned oil company now has
joint ventures in Ecuador and Egypt. Maybe, it's also possible to
have joint ventures to explore and exploit oil reserves in
Indonesia.

We talked yesterday (Wednesday) with the Coordinating Minister
for the Economy (Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti) about these issues.
Also, we talked about issues in the area of communications, the
fact that most of our trade has to be done through Singapore and
whether it is possible to have a direct connection between Chile
and Indonesia. There was also a talk between Chilean Airline and
Garuda on the possibility of extending the former's flights to
Auckland and Sydney to Indonesia.