OVERVIEW
In November 1989 foreign ministers and economic ministers from
12 Asia-Pacific countries gathered in Canberra, Australia, for
the inaugural Ministerial Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation. The countries represented were Australia, Canada,
Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the United States, and
six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or
Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Republic of the
Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
Discussion during this meeting focused on four areas: global and
regional economic development, global trade liberalization,
regional cooperation in specific sectors, and future economic
cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. The participants agreed
that for the sake of the global economy's development, they
would work together to maintain and strengthen the multilateral
free-trade system and to promote the Uruguay Round of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. They also confirmed their
intention not to form a closed trading bloc, instead seeking to
realize "open regional cooperation," and to work in a
complementary fashion with such existing regional organizations
as ASEAN and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council.
Thereafter APEC Ministerial Meetings were organized annually, and
at the third, held in Seoul in November 1991, a statement on aims
was adopted. A high-level working group called SOM, the Senior
Officials Meeting, has been set up, and operating under it are
the Committee on Trade and Investment, the Budget and
Administrative Committee, and the Economic Committee, along with
10 working groups. In 1992 APEC set up a small secretariat
located in Singapore and established a budget system.
After the November 1993 Ministerial Meeting in Seattle, U.S.
President Bill Clinton hosted the first Economic Leaders Meeting,
at which the respective leaders confirmed their shared
understanding of the regional economy and the issues facing it.
This meeting gave a major boost to APEC's development by
providing it with a sense of direction regarding the means and
ends of regional cooperation and the role to be played by the
region as a whole.
The November 1994 Ministerial Meeting took place in Indonesia,
and again an Economic Leaders Meeting was held on the occasion.
The Bogor Declaration, a statement of common resolve by APEC
economic leaders, was adopted at the meeting. This declaration
has set the goal of achieving free and open trade and investment
by 2020, or 2010 for industrialized economies.
Japan is the chair of the 1995 APEC gathering. SOM and the other
groups will hold meetings; a Ministerial Meeting will take place;
and another Economic Leaders Meeting will be held. As host, Japan
hopes that these meetings, to be staged in Osaka in November,
will result in the formulation of an "Action Agenda" for
implementing the Bogor Declaration. While observing the
Asia-Pacific region gain an increasingly important place in the
world economy as the twenty-first century draws nearer, Japan has
come to regard APEC as the core forum for cooperation in the
region's economic development. Japan places considerable
importance both on liberalization and facilitation of trade and
investment and on economic and technical cooperation, and it
regards the two as inseparable. Based on awareness of the
region's great diversity, it is determined to promote economic
and technical cooperation by, for example, developing human
resources.
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