The Asian Connection
The 15-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (APEC) is one of the world’s newest international economic institutions and, according to Iremiah Tabai, former President of Kiribati and now the region’s most senior bureaucrat, is vital to the island nations.
Tabai, who is Secretary-General of the South Pacific Forum Secretariat told APEC’s ministerial meeting in Bangkok
in September “quite simply, the APEC
economies are the major economic part ners of all 13 island nations that I represent. They are our main aid donors, our main sources of tourists, the main distant water fisheries resources. Most important of all they are our main markets for our still small, but expanding industries, taking more than three quar ters of our region’s exports.
Tabai’s address was an historic step for
the islands. Although the Forum Secretariat has had observer status since APEC was estblished, it has never before been granted speaking rights at a ministerial meeting. Tabai used the opportunity to tell the powerful APEC ministers not to forget the island nations.
He spelled out the links between APEC and the islands “because sometimes we observe a distressing tendency for discussion of co-operation in the Pacific Basin to be pitched solely in terms of the nations of the Pacific rim.
“It is as if the Pacific Ocean were nothing but a vast empty space, inconvieniently getting in the way of attempts to forge closer ties among rim nations.”
Passing through Sydney on his way back from his Asian tour Tabai also had a stiff message for the island nations.
“After attending this meeting there is only one way (the islands are going to play a bigger role in APEC)”, Tabai said. “That is that our member countries must make more of an effort to attend the meetings.
“They simply cannot say APEC is important to them without making an attempt to try and get involved.
“That is the basic message that we are going to advise
governments”.
Since it was established in 1989 APEC has grown from shakey beginnings to become the pre-eminent economic co-operation body in the region. As a result of the Bangkok meeting it will set up a permanent secretariat in Singapore. That secretariat will provide a home for APEC’s detailed 10-point work program which already covers projects designed to identify practical ways of co-operating on everything from telecommunications and trade promotion to fisheries and customs harmonisation.
It is here where many of the benefits could be found for the islands nations.
APEC contains many of the powerful economies in the world including China, Japan, Taiwan, the United States and the six ASEAN countries.
As Tabai sees it, selective involvement in the work program plus the political clout conferred by participation in the ministerial level meetings, would deliver dividends.
In the work program key areas for
island participation might include
* The Asia-Pacific Multi-Lateral Human Resources Development Initiative which includes a range of training and education activities focussed on economic and business management and tech
nology.
* Trade Promotion computer net works to exchange trade. Industrial and business information are already operat
ing and the First Asia-Pacific International Trade Fair is planned to take place in Japan in 1994. * Tourism major research is looking at the interrelation ship of tourism and aviation and attempting to identify barriers to tourism and ways of improving tourism training. * Fisheries work is underway to increase international co operation on fisheries management as well as in identifying opportunities for the transfer of harvesting and post-harvesting technologies between APEC participants.
Fisheries is an example of just how crucial APEC participation could be. With 60 per cent of the world’s tuna now being caught in the South Pacific, fishing is shaping up as a long-term mainstay for small island economies. The fact that APEC harbours the world’s most powerful, and in some cases environmentally recalcitrant, fishing nations has not escaped the Honiara-based Forum Fisheries Agency which is playing a key role in APEC’s fisheries work program.
For Iremiah Tabai the most important aspect of APEC is its ability to foster the Pacific islands fledgling export industries.
Outside trade with Australia and New Zealand, the South Pacific forum’s only member nations in APEC, no-one believes this will be easy. The low wages, competitive environment and industry profile of many Asian nations make it a difficult market for island exports.
Tabai’s solution begins with gaining a finger on the APEC pulse by being seen as an active player. At this stage he suggests island nations make more use of the opportunity to attend APEC as part of the Forum Secretariat delegation. In the future some, led by Papua New Guinea which hopes to be granted full APEC membership in 1994, may want to send their own delegations.