Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: New Agenda in Its Third Decade

Preface

Preface The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s (APEC) momentum heightened in 1993–96. In 1993 in Seattle, the United States hosted the first APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting. In 1994 in Bogor, Indonesia, the leaders issued the ambitious statement of “the industrialized economies achieving the goal of free and open trade and investment no later than the year 2010 and developing economies no later than the year 2020”. The Osaka Action Agenda was adopted in 1995 and the Manila Framework was adopted in 1996. However, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and other Asian members were hit severely by the East Asian currency crisis in 1997–98, while APEC’s liberalization agenda turned out to be much less than had been expected. Both leaders’ meetings and ministerial meetings have continued to be held in one of the APEC member economies in autumn every year, but the media only report the leaders’ statements. APEC has developed a pragmatic agenda for regional economic cooperation focusing on business facilitation and has achieved steady expansion of trade and investment in the region through its second decade. Globalization has continued in terms of money, business, and people. While trying to overcome the current world financial crisis, all economies need to cooperate on such new global issues as global warming, pandemics, poverty, and human security. The G-20 Summit emerged in 2008 as a new global consultation forum for global governance, in addition to the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and World Health Organization, while APEC and other regional cooperation bodies are expected to supplement them. APEC was hosted by Singapore in 2009, Japan in 2010, and will be hosted by the United States in 2011. It expects capable hosts to successfully tackle the new challenges in the beginning of its third decade. Japan took the lead in the assessment of the mid-term achievement of the Bogor x Preface Goals in 2010 and paved the way towards the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific Region (FTAAP). With strengthened U.S. engagement, negotiations among nine APEC members for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) began in 2010. Following Singapore’s lead in addressing the desirable attributes for growth in the region, Yokohama APEC announced the APEC Growth Strategy as the post-Bogor agenda. However, these efforts are currently not well known to media and the general public in the region. Those who remember the heightened APEC momentum in the 1990s will ask, “So what happened to the Bogor Goals?” This book answers this question and details the current achievements of APEC in tackling these new challenges. The book is organized as follows: Chapter 1 presents an overview of APEC’s current agenda. At the onset of the current global financial crisis in the autumn of 2008, the APEC Lima Meeting responded in a timely manner to the G-20 Summit’s call with a package of macroeconomic policy and financial stability measures. The APEC Singapore Meeting picked up a variety of issues requiring global responses, such as “inclusive growth” to address issues of increasing income disparity, poverty under globalization, and environmental protection. APEC Yokohama announced the mid-term assessment of APEC’s progress towards the Bogor Goals and the post-Bogor agenda. Chapters 2 to 5 examine the main activities of APEC, trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. Chapter 2 reviews its activities of the past twenty years, focusing on its unique modality of liberalization. Chapter 3 analyses the organizational details of APEC in comparison with the European Union. It also explains the private sector’s participation in APEC. Chapter 4 presents the author’s quantitative assessment of APEC’s progress towards the Bogor Goals, together withAPEC’s group assessment of the thirteen economies in 2010. Chapter 5 explains current pragmatic approaches, such as various activities in response to prevalent free trade agreements, economic and technical cooperation, and domestic reform for behind-the-border measures. Chapter 6 discusses the post-Bogor agenda in pursuance of Chapter 1. How can we further develop APEC’s liberalization through the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) and FTAAP? Chapter 7 discusses interaction between APEC and the East Asian Community (EAC). The paradigm of East Asian regional cooperation shifted towards the EAC since the East Asian currency crisis in 1997–98. But building the EAC will take time, due to insufficient capability of its leading members, immature cooperation among another group, and the unresolved difficulty of handling...