Unfamiliar abbreviations creeping into APEC forum

By Endy Bayuni

JAKARTA (JP): In the beginning, there was just APEC ...

Now the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which is entering its sixth year, has created a host of abbreviations, which its officials feel at ease with, but which are mindboggling to those not familiar with APEC.

Amid the intensive debate within APEC on the merits (and drawbacks) of institutionalizing the forum, or on how rapidly (or slowly) they want the forum to become a formally structured organization, one thing is for sure -- the use of abbreviations and acronyms is being institutionalized by APEC bureaucrats.

Now, with APEC dominating the pages of national and international newspapers, their reporters will have to struggle through the alphabet soup of three-letter or four-letter abbreviations and acronyms and try to decipher these and make them comprehensible for their readers.

From the now familiar ASEAN, EPG, EAEC, the list of abbreviations has proliferated. Among the latest additions are AELM, CTI, ETI.

As abbreviation and acronym making is considered a favorite past time for Indonesians, no doubt some of the additions have been made by Indonesia, which is chairing the forum this year.

And more abbreviations will be created no doubt in the coming years as institutionalization creeps up on APEC and as bureaucrats establish more and more meetings to liberalize trade in the region.

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) itself, as many officials willingly admit, constitutes poor usage of English because it is an incomplete phrase. Because of this, the proper usage is APEC forum.

"We adopted APEC because it sounded good," remarked an Indonesian official familiar with the history of the forum.

Those who cannot accept the violation of language principles might not have to wait too long before they see a change. The United States has been trying to convert the forum's name into the Asia Pacific Economic Community, still APEC for short, but at least good English.

Political sensitivity also determines the way the abbreviations are created in APEC.

Not wanting to offend China, APEC views its membership as an economic entity not defined by states or governments. This has allowed the forum to recruit China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which is officially referred to as Chinese Taipei, at the same time.

This means, however, that the meeting of APEC leaders, first held in Blake Island in Seattle, the United States, last November, cannot be called a summit, because that would offend China. It was then officially called the informal meeting of APEC leaders, or the "leadership" meeting for second reference. It was not a summit.

Now with Indonesia preparing to host the second such meeting in nearby Bogor on Nov. 15, the host nation has come up with the acronym "AELM" which stands for APEC Economic Leaders Meeting. Again, as in the case of Blake Island, anyone trying to portray the meeting as a summit will quickly earn official wrath.

But there is no problem with the lesser level meetings. The senior officials meeting, now already underway, is described as such and given the initials SOM. The ministerial meeting is also called just that although, for some unexplained reason, no one has bothered to make up an abbreviation for it.

Identity

The term "ASEAN" will likely creep into most APEC press articles because the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has continued to maintain its identity within APEC.

Its six members -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- insisted when they joined APEC in 1989 that the group must not be diluted. As a concession for its joining, ASEAN won the right to host the APEC meetings every other year.

Now ASEAN is also lobbying to establish another, larger caucus within APEC, called the EAEC, which stands for East Asia Economic Caucus. But the idea has been shot down by the "Caucasian" or the "non-Asian" members of APEC, particularly the United States. The EAEC is expected to link the six ASEAN countries with Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The institutionalization of APEC also means the creation of working groups, committees and sub-committees, all of which are, or will, sooner or later, be referred to in their three-letter or four-letter abbreviations and acronyms.

CTI stands for Committee on Trade and Investment. There is also the ETI (Economic Trends and Issues) working group. In APEC, even the issues are abbreviated. Examples are: SME (Small and Medium Enterprises), AAMA (Administration Aspects of Market Access) and TRIM (Trade Related Investment Measures), RTL (Regional Trade Liberalization).

Then there are also the supporting organizations within and outside of APEC.

The PECC is the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, a tripartite forum grouping representatives from Asia-Pacific business, government and academic communities.

There is also the EPG, or the Eminent Persons Group of APEC, which is mandated to look into issues, particularly in trade liberalization, on behalf of the forum.

After presenting two reports, its future hinges on this week's APEC ministerial meeting, which will decide whether the ministers have any more use for the group, given that the forum has established committees which could undertake the study and prepare reports similar to those by the EPG.

Whatever decision is made in Jakarta, Japan, as the next APEC chairman beginning in 1995, is already considering the establishment of another group, called the Group of Eminent and Experienced Persons. Since this has yet to be accepted at APEC, there is no acronym for it ... at least for the time being.