NZ failed to open trade club to ordinary citizens

By Isagani de Castro

New Zealand had the opportunity to redesign Apec and give it a badly needed new purpose. It failed.

Everyone knows that Apec is a failure. It seeks to achieve free trade by 2010 for developed economies and 2020 for developing economies, but all of its trade liberalisation work has been passed on to the World Trade Organisation.

Ever since Apec economies agreed that their moves would be voluntary, flexible and non-binding, it lost its reason for being a trade liberalisation club.

It's not just the usual Apec critics who are saying this. Former Eminent Persons Group leader Fred Bergsten has said that Apec cannot simply be a cheerleader for the WTO.

Malaysia tried to give new meaning to Apec by refocusing its attention away from trade liberalisation to economic and technical cooperation. But New Zealand did not listen, prompting Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed to say there was no reason for him to go to Auckland.

New Zealand could have improved Dr Mahathir's plan. Aside from focusing on Asia-Pacific international economic cooperation, it could have opened up the Apec process.

Apec has an economic and technical cooperation programme, but as one Pacific Economic Cooperation Council source says, the best way to improve on the programme is to reduce the number of Apec meetings.

Apec is a club of princes and merchants, of leaders and chief executive officers (CEOs), of the famous and the rich.

But as the United Nations and many other international agencies have been saying for some time, economic prosperity cannot be left to ministers and businessmen alone.

Eliminating poverty needs cooperation among the state, business and civil society.

Free and open trade has repercussions that affect ordinary people, so they must be involved in the Apec process.

For a city that has a Civic Theatre, a Civic Tavern and a Civic Bookshop, it is a surprise that Auckland and New Zealand did not open up Apec to civics.

In 1996, Manila initiated a more democratic Apec by consulting civil society in the drafting of the Manila Action Plans. The following year, Vancouver built on this initiative by formally engaging civil society in the Apec process.

None of that happened in Malaysia, of course, but New Zealand could have developed the idea of a more open Apec.

Apec already has a formal consultation process with businessmen through the Apec Business Advisory Council. New Zealand added a CEOs summit to the process. The voice of business in Apec is already loud and clear; the CEOs summit makes it deafening.

New Zealand could have given seats to civics in the Apec process. It could have opened the door to citizens. It could have shared seats with responsible members of the non-government organisation community from the Apec monitoring group.

Apec will never succeed in being understood by civics if they are not involved and engaged in the process.

East Timor saved New Zealand's hosting of Apec. New Zealand's move to highlight the calamity in the side meetings of Apec showed its concern.

The Auckland summit will be remembered for East Timor, but it should not take human rights crises to make Apec summits relevant.

* Isagani de Castro jun is a reporter for the Manila bureau of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. His opinions do not reflect the views of that newspaper.