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PHL says Bogor goals not yet achieved by APEC
Philippine officials said yesterday that the Bogor goals of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) — which sought "free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific by 2010 for industrialized economies, and 2020 for developing economies" — had yet to be fully achieved. During the 1994 meeting in Bogor, Indonesia, APEC member-states adopted the Bogor Goals, which would require developed members such as the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia to achieve significant trade liberalization and enact policies promoting “free and open trade" with developing countries. However, many developing member countries in the Pacific Rim face hurdles in penetrating richer markets, due to the restriction of trade by non-tariff barriers such as such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS). At this year’s 18th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting, scheduled from November 12 to 14 in Yokohoma, Japan, the commitment of APEC’s 21 member-states to the Bogor goals are up for review. "As far as the Philippines is concerned, a lot of things have been accomplished but we have a long way to go in fully realizing the Bogor goals," said Antonio Rodriguez, the Philippines’ head negotiator for APEC. Tariffs on APEC economies have been reduced from 16.9 percent in 1994 to 5.5 percent in 2004, according to an APEC midterm review of the Bogor goals. Trade regimes have also become more transparent, with tariff and customs information available online in most APEC economies since 1996, stated the APEC midterm assessment report. Moreover, intra-APEC trade in goods and services more than tripled between 1989 and 2003, accounting for an increasingly large proportion of the gross domestic product of APEC members — growing from 13.8 percent in 1989 to 18.5 percent in 2003, said the report. The achievements recorded by the APEC, however, should be translated into the number of jobs created and the ability of members to address the "social dimension of globalization," said Rodriguez, who is also foreign undersecretary for international economic relations. In the case of the Philippines, whose investment and trade systems lag behind its APEC counterparts, the country would not even qualify to participate in the ambitious Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) that establishes a free trading system among APEC members, Rodriguez noted. The TPP, a multilateral free trade deal signed in 2006 by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore "is only by invitation," Rodriguez said. There are five additional countries invited to join the TPP: Australia, Malaysia, Peru, United States and Vietnam. "It is our desire to be invited in the TPP, but we have a long long way to go," said Rodriguez. President Benigno Aquino III, who will attend the APEC summit, is expected to push for long-term economic and technical cooperation among developing countries, to increase their capacity to level up with richer member-states in trade liberalization. (See: PNoy to address ‘social dimensions’ of globalization at APEC meet) Rodriguez said that Aquino will push the following key initiatives for APEC growth strategy:
- transparency in governance and structural reforms to enhance ease of doing business and generate investments;
- employment creation and social safety nets for the vulnerable sectors; and
- public-private partnership for innovative growth, food security, infrastructure development and small and medium enterprise development.
