Talks Seek to Emphasize Private Sector : APEC: Down to Business? 
International Herald Tribune
June 10, 1994
Michael Richardson 

Business leaders will meet here Friday and Saturday in an attempt to short-circuit some divisive issues and political maneuvering that critics say are hampering the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the centerpiece of a fledgling economic community.

On the agenda will be a search for practical ways to reduce barriers to the flow of goods and services and an effort to put more emphasis on the private sector. The organization has been under fire for being preoccupied with governmental objectives.

The group, which will meet behind closed doors, was asked by President Bill Clinton and other leaders to identify issues the community should address to smooth regional trade and investment and encourage development of business networks.

Known as the Pacific Business Forum, the group consists of two business executives from each of the 17 member economies. It will make its report to a summit meeting in Indonesia in November.

Some businessmen, officials and analysts see the need for a strong role for the private sector as a means of bypassing a debate among governments over the structure and aims of the organization. They say the members should focus less on divisive ideological issues and more on lowering barriers to goods and services.

Members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States. The grouping accounts for 40 percent of the world's population and half its gross national product.

"Some people in government always want to change organizations around for different purposes," said Douglas C. Henck, the Hong Kong- based chairman of the Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce. "But the aim of APEC should be to further economic links between its members in a way that would be helpful to the business community."

That sentiment was endorsed recently by Mahathir bin Mohamad, the Malaysian prime minister who was so riled at attempts by the United States and Australia to force regional integration that he boycotted the APEC summit meeting in Seattle late last year.

Noting that the economic dynamism of the Asia-Pacific area was the result of market forces and not government intervention, he said that the "most important sustained builders" of a Pacific community would be "the workers, managers and entrepreneurs" of regional countries, not the officials. Mr. Mahathir said that to try to construct a Pacific community along the lines of the European Union would be extremely disruptive.

Instead, he said, governments should simply establish the framework within which individual contact could flourish and "entrepreneurs can go about their daily business of profiting from Pacific dynamism, thereby building the relationships of investment, trade and comprehensive economic interdependence" that would provide a solid foundation for a regional community.

"A lot of the bureaucrats of APEC member economies don't really care about private-sector participation," said Jusuf Wanandi, chairman of the Indonesian national committee of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. "Basically, they see it as a threat to their own control over APEC."

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