Apec body: Rebuilding confidence needed
By Michael Lim Ubac
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:56:00 11/22/2008
Filed Under: Diplomacy, world financial crisis, Foreign affairs & international relations
LIMA, Peru—An advisory group has called on 21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders to “seize the opportunity and respond to the global economic crisis by charting a course that would set all Apec economies on a path of recovery and renewed growth and development.”
On the eve of the opening of the two-day 16th Apec leaders' meeting, the Apec Business Advisory Council (Abac) said new policies and programs were needed to rebuild confidence in the world's money markets amid the worsening global financial crisis.
“Apec economies must resist potential, reactionary measures of protectionism and draconian regulation,” said Abac in its recommendations, after its fourth and final meeting on Friday.
Abac, comprised of influential members of the business community from across the 21 Apec member economies, provides advice from a business perspective to Apec leaders and foreign ministers.
The advisory group came up with a list of recommendations that would become the blueprint for the Lima Declaration to be signed at the Apec meeting.
Abac is set to dialogue with Apec leaders, including President Macapagal-Arroyo on Saturday.
Abac said it “strongly supports the undertaking by the G-20 leaders to refrain from raising new barriers to investment or trade … or imposing new export restrictions, or implementing measures inconsistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) measures to stimulate exports.”
The group said it would ask Apec leaders to match the G-20 commitment and consider establishing a process for monitoring and reporting on its implementation. It calls for “positive actions,” namely:
Fiscal responses to invigorate demand through appropriate spending on public works and tax incentives
Measures to ensure a smooth, orderly process of adjustment in financial markets
Trade liberalization in the global and regional markets
Measures to alleviate the difficulties faced by small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Abac said it views the strong G-20 commitment to an open global economy as fully consistent with the Apec vision.
The G-20 is made up of the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the European Union.
Abac said it strongly supports the undertaking by G-20 leaders “to refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organization (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports.”
“Accelerated measures to deepen transpacific regional integration in an open and non-discriminatory way would also rebuild confidence among business in the Apec region. Work towards a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific is seen as a means by which this objective should be pursued,” the group said.
Abac hosted the second session of the 2008 summit on small- and medium-sized enterprises in Lima on Nov. 17.
This session and an earlier one held in August in Hangzhou, China, were “tangible demonstrations of corporate social responsibility exercised by Abac members,” the group said, as many SMEs had been hard hit by the global economic crisis.
Abac urged Apec leaders to support proposals it had submitted for special programs for SMEs covering technological infrastructure, financing capacity building and training.
Other issues considered at the Abac meeting included trade and investment facilitation measures, labor mobility, food security, corporate social responsibility, energy security, information communication technology-enabled growth and intellectual property rights protection.
Work on these and new projects will be continued in 2009 under the chairmanship of Abac Singapore.
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