Seminar: "APEC: Opportunities and Challenges for the Peruvian
Business Sector"
Address by Ambassador Timothy Hannah
Executive Director, APEC Secretariat Lima, Peru, January 21st, 1999.
(Organized by "Peruvian Institute for Economy", ABAC-PERU,
)
"APEC and the Business Sector"
Introduction and thanks to hosts
Last November in Malaysia, at the 10th Annual Ministerial Meeting
Peru with Russia and Vietnam, became a member of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation forum. It is now a grouping of 21 Asia-Pacific
economies committed to economic cooperation together to raise living
standards in the region and build an Asia-Pacific community. Meeting
as "economies", APEC membership includes Taiwan as Chinese
Taipei and Hong Kong, China. Two major regional/global economies
whose full participation enhances regional cooperation in Asia-Pacific.
APEC economies together are a major force in the world economy.
The most important meeting in Malaysia was the Economic Leaders
summit, attended by President Fujimori, his colleagues from Chile
and Mexico, Korea, President Jiang Ze Min of China, Prime Minister
Obuchi of Japan, Leaders of South East Asia states, Australia, Russia
and others including New Zealand, my own country. New Zealand is
this year’s host and chair of APEC following Malaysia in 1998.
Leaders set ambitious goals and a substantial agenda for APEC work
this year: in particular a range of very specific initiatives and
measures to deal with the financial crisis including its social
impacts, also to promote trade and investment liberalisation, make
it easier to do business in the region, promote E-Commerce, strengthen
science and technology industry cooperation, integrate women in
APEC, foster SME development and Human Resources capacity building
and skills development. The Committee on Trade and Investment, specialist
working groups and the Finance Ministers process and other fora
will work on leaders instructions during 1999.
In Malaysia, Leaders also met with senior business, private sector
representation from member economies, three from each making up
the APEC Business Advisory Council, ABAC. This is a grouping that
Leaders have appointed to advise them on initiatives and measures
that will facilitate trade, develop markets and thus contribute
to soundly based economic growth in an interdependent regional and
global economy.
The extent of APEC activities and relations with business go much
further than ABAC. Our purpose at this conference is to give some
indications of APEC-business links and the interest or opportunities
they may offer to Peru’s business community.
Business facilitation is one of the main areas, one of the "three
pillars" of APEC cooperation. The others are trade and investment
liberalisation and economic and technical cooperation or "Ecotech".
Ecotech projects seek to reduce economic disparities among member
economies and to enable all, particularly developing members, to
benefit more fully from trade liberalisation. They cover training
and sharing of information experience and expertise among member
economies in specialised areas. The aim is to fully develop regional
human resources: capacity building. I am convinced there will be
value for Peru in participating fully in APEC ecotech activities
and projects.
I also note that unlike many international groupings, APEC is very
open to the private/business sector. Links and dialogue are very
extensive. Many working groups – Infrastructure Development, Telecommunications,
E-Commerce, Energy, Tourism and others – include business people
or business group representatives in their consultations or have
special dialogues with them.
I am glad to share the floor with a Secretariat colleague, Jaime
Pomareda, whose secondment by your Government has added real strength
to the Secretariat. I am confident his insights will also assist
your government and business to get maximum value from APEC participation.
He will speak on some specific aspects of APEC work of special relevance
to business.
But first may I explain briefly about the Secretariat of which
I am current Executive Director. In that capacity, I am honoured
to be the first official APEC visitor to Peru since you became a
full member. The hospitality has been generous and I have had valuable
opportunities to learn your Government’s perspectives and interests
in APEC. My position will be taken by a senior Bruneian diplomat
next year, when Brunei Darussalam assumes the Chair and host for
APEC. I have 22 colleagues including Jaime seconded from 17 member
economies and we are based in Singapore.
The Secretariat
When APEC was established in 1989 with 11 members it was as an
informal consultative process. We rejected organisational models
from outside the region. We decided against setting up any Secretariat.
No to an international bureaucracy like the UN, no to a dominant
think tank. APEC activities were to be initiated and managed by
APEC member economies themselves.
But these activities expanded very fast. Members found the opportunity
of APEC to work together increasingly valuable. New members joined.
With the growth in number and diversity of activities, Ministers
decided to set up a small central Secretariat to support and coordinate
activities and manage technical cooperation and other finances.
Singapore’s offer to host the Secretariat was accepted; they pay
the rent on our 3 floors and have plans to build a permanent HQ
building. There were 14 staff initially seconded by member economies,
now 23 plus locally recruited support staff.
What does the Secretariat produce? Secretariat support for APEC
working group and other fora meetings. Each secondee is responsible
for one or more tof these fora as well as other duties. There were
some 225 meetings of 26 main fora last year. We also coordinate
between them. Meetings are held throughout the APEC region. I am
going to attend a meeting of the HRD Working Group in Santiago next
week.
APEC is managed through the year by senior officials, chaired by
the host economy this year New Zealand (Output II). We draft many
of the studies and position papers for them.
This Output III relates to financial management of the $4 million
or so in Ecotech project funds. At present there are about 270 projects
in progress. We are also responsible for evaluation of the results
of these projects – to check they give value for money.
Output IV – Public Affairs and information on APEC – is quite an
important area: speeches, media and public briefings, a range of
publications on APEC activities, most available by free download
from our website. I strongly recommend you visit it. There is a
business section. The central site receives over 300,000 hits or
requests a month, 100 plus megabytes or 2000 pages of information
downloaded per day.
Before I pass the microphone to Jaime, I want to highlight some
key features of APEC. It is important background, I think, to know
how it operates.
Comment on
I also want to comment on the trade liberalisation process in APEC,
year to year, working towards the Bogor goals of free trade and
investment by 2010/2020.
This is carried forward in a frameword agreed by Leaders in Osaka
in 1992. The framework is of common action plans of joint initiatives
and also voluntary commitments under Individual Action Plans. These
are updated annually as progress is recorded. IAPs are a key feature
of APEC.
Here is a sample. Peru is now part of this process of common economic
cooperation and other member economies look forward to Peru’s full
participation it will add strength to APEC and I am confident support
your own efforts to increase living standards.
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