U.S. has no plan to change APEC to formal body: Barry

U.S. has no plan to change APEC to formal body: Barry

JAKARTA (JP): U.S. Ambassador Robert Barry said here yesterday
that his government has no intention of changing the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum into a formal body or trade
grouping.

Speaking at a meeting of Asia and Pacific businessmen, the
U.S. ambassador said that APEC, which groups 17 countries in the
Asia-Pacific rim, would be better maintained as an informal,
loose organization.

Barry said that turning the organization into a trade grouping
similar to the European Community (EC) or North American Free
Trade Area (NAFTA) would be difficult due to the different stages
of the economies of its members, as well as to the difference in
their cultures.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad boycotted APEC's
first summit meeting in Seattle, the United States, last year due
to his opposition to the alleged U.S. plan to turn the
organization into a trade block similar to the EC and NAFTA.

In his address at yesterday's meeting, the U.S. ambassador
said that APEC, even under its present status as a loose and
informal organization, still has the potential to simplify and
facilitate important economic relations.

He acknowledged that business negotiations carried out under
the informal organization would take time.

"But little by little, different working groups in the
organization are chipping away barriers to trade and investment,"
he told around 140 Asia and Pacific businessmen at the meeting.

APEC has a number of working groups to discuss and recommend
possible cooperation between the member countries.

Database

Barry said that one of APEC's working groups is developing an
affordable, usable data base, that will allow companies in any
member country to find our what import duties are on their
products in other member countries.

Another group, he said, is working to try to make product
standards requirements more uniform, while another brings customs
officials together to make their requirements more uniform as
well.

"All of these activities, although they are not earth-
shattering in themselves, will grease the nuts and bolts of trade
in APEC," he said.

He was optimistic that the activities would also play an
important role in dismantling trade barriers among its member
countries.

The meeting, which will end today, is organized by APB Net, a
business forum established by the national business organizations
of the APEC members early last year.

Speakers at the meeting include Harold Clough, the president
of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI),
Aburizal Bakrie, the president of the Indonesian Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (Kadin), Koichiro Ejiri, the president of
the Japan Foreign Trade Council, and Indonesia's State Minister
for Investment Sanyoto Sastrowardoyo.

In his address, Ejiri, also the chairman of Mitsui and Co.,
called for maintaining APEC as a place for mutual communication
concerning open economic policies rather than a place for
negotiations.

He said that turning APEC into a trade grouping could be
counterproductive because negotiations among countries at
different stages of the development of their economies would not
be effective.

Ejiri said that it will be more realistic and beneficial for
each member country to pursue open economic policies in line with
the spirit of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
and the World Trade Organization (WTO) by utilizing the dynamics
of spontaneous economic zones rising in the region. (hen)