Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: Encyclopedia - Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a group of Pacific Rim countries who meet with the purpose of improving economic and political ties. It holds annual meetings in each of the member countries and has standing committees on a wide range of issues, from communications to fisheries.

The heads of government of all APEC members meet annually in a summit called "APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting" rotating in location among APEC's member economies. Due to pressure from the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan, is not allowed to carry either of the names "Republic of China" or "Taiwan" but must be referred to as Chinese Taipei. Neither its head of state nor government is allowed to attend the summit and must send a ministerial-level official in economic affairs as their envoy. (see list of Chinese Taipei Representatives to APEC)

APEC is famous for its tradition of having attending leaders dress in the national costume of the host nation.

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation - History and development

In January 1989, Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke called for more effective economic cooperation across the Asia Pacific Region. This lead to the first meeting of APEC in Canberra, Australia in November, chaired by foreign minister, Gareth Evans. Attended by ministers from 12 countries, the meeting concluded with commitments for future annual meetings in Singapore and South Korea.

The first APEC Leaders' Meeting occurred in 1993 when U.S. President Bill Clinton, seeing it as a crucial vehicle to bring the derailed Uruguay Round of trade talks back on track, invited member economies' leaders to Blake Island, Washington. At Blake Island, Leaders called for continued reduction of trade and investment barriers, envisioning an "Asia-Pacific community" that promotes prosperity through cooperation. APEC's headquarters are located in Singapore.

APEC's stated "Bogor Goals" adopted in 1994 at the Bogor summit are aimed at free and open trade and investments by reducing tariff barrier to a level of between zero to five percent in the Asia-Pacific area for industrialized economies by 2010 and for developing economies by 2020.

In 1995, APEC established a business advisory body, called the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), which consists of three business executives from each member economy.

In 1997 the APEC summit was in Vancouver, British Columbia. Great controversy arose when politicians instructed RCMP officers to use force and pepper spray against non-violent protesters. The protesters objected to the presence of dictators such as Indonesia's president Suharto.

APEC's push for a new round of trade negotiations and support for a program of trade capacity-building assistance at the 2001 summit in Shanghai, led to the successful launch of the Doha Development Agenda a few weeks later. Leaders also endorsed the U.S.-proposed 'Shanghai Accord' which emphasizes implementation of APEC's commitments to open markets, structural reform, and capacity building. As part of the accord, leaders committed to develop and implement APEC transparency standards, reduce trade transaction costs in the Asia-Pacific region by 5 percent over 5 years, and pursue trade liberalization policies relating to information technology goods and services.

In 2003, Jemaah Islamiah head Riduan Isamuddin, a.k.a. Hambali, was planning an attack against the October 2003 APEC summit in Bangkok. He was captured in the city of Ayutthaya, Thailand, near Bangkok by Thai Police on August 11, 2003, before he could finish planning his attack on the APEC summit.

In 2004, Chile became the first South American nation to host the summit. The agenda of the APEC 2004 year was focused on terrorism and commerce, small and medium enterprise development and contemplation of Free Trade Agreements and Regional Trade Agreements.

The 2005 edition was held in November in Busan, South Korea. The meeting focused on the current Doha trade round which is due to be discussed further in a World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December of the same year. Weeks earlier, trade negotiations in Paris had been held between various WTO members, including the US and the European Union. The talks centered on reducing agricultural trade barriers. The EU resisted substantial reductions in agricultural tariffs, which risked a meltdown of the process. In response, APEC urged the EU to agree to farm subsidy reduction. Aside from the meetings, peaceful protests against APEC were staged in Busan, but these didn't interfere with the APEC schedule.

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation - Membership

APEC's 21 members by date of membership are:

• Founding members: November 1989
  •  Australia
  •  Brunei
  •  Canada
  •  Indonesia
  •  Japan
  •  Republic of Korea
  •  Malaysia
  •  New Zealand
  •  Philippines
  •  Singapore
  •  Thailand
  •  United States

• November 1991
  •  People's Republic of China
  •  Hong Kong, China ( Hong Kong before 1997)
  • Chinese Taipei (Republic of China)

• November 1993
  •  Mexico
  •  Papua New Guinea

• November 1994
  •  Chile

• November 1998
  •  Peru
  •  Russia
  •  Vietnam

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation - APEC annual meetings

See also

• Asia-Europe Meeting
• ASEAN Free Trade Area

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki