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Philippines Meetings

Background Briefing by Japanese Foreign Ministry Official on
the 1996 APEC Meetings in the Philippines

15 November 1996

  1. Osaka Action Agenda
  2. Basic framework for the 1996 APEC Meeting in Manila
  3. Main Achievements for the Manila APEC Meeting
  4. Trends in economic and technical cooperation
  5. APEC message to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
  6. Information Technology Agreement (ITA)
  7. Expanding coordination between APEC and the private sector
  8. New APEC membership
  9. Japan's contribution to the APEC process is Manila
  10. Partners for Progress (PFP)
  11. Long-term issues
  12. Japan's Individual Action Plans
  13. New APEC membership
  14. Significance of Individual Action Plans, and the future targets of APEC
  15. Implementation by Japan of the principles of the Bogor Declaration
  16. The APEC Collective Action Plan
  17. Possible deregulation measures involving produce
  1. Osaka Action Agenda

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: Good afternoon. The background briefing is based on two documents which we have distributed to you, one of them the Osaka Action Agenda which is last year's document, but it will be the basis for our action this year, so it might be useful as a reference. This Action Agenda is something which was agreed upon in order to implement the Bogor target which had been agreed upon a year before. It is aimed at achieving free and open trade by the year 2010 in the case of developed economies and the year 2020 in the case of developing economies. Last year, in a way it might be said that this Osaka Action Agenda pointed the direction to which APEC should head from now on. It is a very thick, voluminous document, 30-40 pages in total. This is comprised of two parts. Part one is the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment. Part two is about the economic and technical cooperation. Part one is composed of 15 areas, whereas the second, or cooperation part, is composed of 13 areas. In part one, there is a list of guidelines mentioned, according to which each APEC forum and each APEC Member has to do its own job from this year. Each APEC Member put together its own Action Plan. This is a key word for this year: Action Plan. All 18 members are expected to come up with their own IAPs, Individual Action Plans, which will be submitted to the forthcoming Ministerial Meeting next week. This is, I believe, the largest target for this year in the Manila Meeting. Also, in the coming Ministerial or APEC Meeting, we will be looking for the achievements to be made in the area of economic and technical cooperation and some other areas.

  2. Basic framework for the 1996 APEC Meeting in Manila

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: Now, let me touch upon the second paper which outlines the basic framework for this year's APEC meeting. The documents expected to be announced in the coming meeting are the following: The first one is the Manila Action Plan for APEC, it is called MAPA for short. It comprises the summary. Secondly, there are the Individual Action Plans, all 18 of them put together, and thirdly the Collective Action Plan, which is Action Plans taken collectively by each APEC forum. There are many APEC forums, which will be involved in this and this is a kind of action collectively taken by all of the 18 members. Fourthly, the achievements and activities in the economic and technical cooperation sectors. This is about the activities in Part Two of the Osaka Action Agenda. There are three more documents which we expect to be issued at the APEC Meeting. This second document is the Leaders Declaration and the third the Joint Ministerial Statement. These two are the kind of documents which have usually been issued in past meetings. Lastly, Declaration on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Framework, for strengthening economic cooperation and development. This paper purports to refocus the attention of APEC on the Part Two activities of the Osaka Action Agenda. It is said that more than 350 activities have been underway, or in fact some of them are completed, under Part two of OAA in the economic cooperation area. But, it was thought a good idea to bring the concept of focused outcomes in this area in order to bring about better coordination among the various projects. These are the basic documents we are going to look at.

  3. Main Achievements for the Manila APEC Meeting

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: What will be achieved at this coming APEC Meeting. There are three or four main pillars. The first one is on the facilitation and liberalization of trade and investment. You might recall that in the Seattle Summit Meeting in 1993, it was a vision of the Asia-Pacific community which was incorporated in the Leaders Declaration. The next year in Bogor, it was said it was the long-term target of free and open trade and investment. Last year in Osaka, it was the Action Agenda. A kind of a road map has been laid down in last year's Meeting. For this year, each APEC Member has to really start walking based on that road map. In a way, this is a heavy task for each Member, because they have to really start moving. First and foremost, the Individual Action Plan is the biggest achievement coming out of this APEC Meeting. Secondly, the Collective Action Plans that I mentioned earlier -- this is also important, especially it is something that APEC can show as a tangible benefit to the business sector, because they will be involved in the development of tariff database, the computerization of customs procedures, or the issuance of the investment guidebook. There are many other projects which will be compiled under this Collective Action. These Action Plans are a kind of exercise which will be ongoing even after Manila. In fact, they will be going on for a fairly long time, this is about the long-term target of 2010 and 2020. So, year after year, these plans will be reviewed, revised, improved and put in complete terms as the target year approaches.

  4. Trends in economic and technical cooperation

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: Secondly, trends in economic and technical cooperation. As I mentioned, this year, people are especially trying to refocus on economic and technical cooperation. This is against the background that in the year of Bogor, as in the year of Osaka, liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment was given a relatively larger focus vis- -vis economic and technical cooperation. The current Chair of APEC is trying a little bit to change, to balance, in order to regain a proper perspective. After all, APEC started as a type of forum centered around cooperation activities. We are expecting that some documents will be coming out outlining guiding principles in several priority areas. Under this item, I might touch upon Partners for Progress. This is a kind of mechanism for promoting a more efficient economic and technical cooperation within APEC which had been promoted by Japan.

  5. APEC message to the World Trade Organization (WTO)

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: Thirdly, in the interest of time, I will go on to the WTO; it will be only two weeks after the APEC to the WTO Singapore Ministerial Meeting is held in December. So, naturally people will expect APEC before send a strong political message to the Ministerial Meeting in Singapore, to which people attach a great importance, because this is an every-two-years Ministerial Meeting and the first one to take place after the start of the implementation of the Uruguay Round agreements. So, what kind of a message could APEC send? This is a task which we face. First, and obviously, there has to be a reconfirmation of the commitment of the full implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreements. We might probably mention the importance of open regional cooperation, because there are so many regional groupings going on in the world currently, so it might be a good idea to reconfirm the importance of the multilateral trading system under the WTO.

  6. Information Technology Agreement (ITA)

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: The next point is the Information Technology Agreement (ITA). This is something which might be agreed upon in the coming Singapore Ministerial Meeting rather than in APEC, but since APEC is composed of many members who have interest in this area of information technological equipment, if this agreement of bringing about mutual elimination of tariffs on information technology equipment, including computer hardware and software, and semiconductors, and other electronic equipment, we might want to see some positive message included in the documents. Furthermore, the so-called new issues which might be taken up at the Singapore Ministerial. Lastly but not least is the promotion of the accession to the WTO of those non-WTO members in APEC. These are the kinds of factors we are going to look at in the WTO context. We don't know to what extent we can be successful in this endeavor.

  7. Expanding coordination between APEC and the private sector

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: The next point is expanding coordination between APEC and the private sector. After all, APEC duties and government cooperation have to be based upon private business activities. Therefore, last year we agreed to establish this year the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). They met a couple of times already this year and they have produced a report that has already been transmitted to President Fidel Ramos of the Republic of the Philippines on 24 October 1996. This will involve many recommendations in five measure areas. This is something we can look at after Manila, whether we can realize some of the recommendations or not. The other thing is about the APEC Business Forum (ABF), which is a one-off event organized by the Filipino business people, but strongly supported by the Philippine Government. This is to invite 25 or so CEOs from all the 18 APEC Members. So, there will be a large number of business people getting together in Manila during the period of APEC. There will be a meeting on 21, 22 and 23 November. And, there are a couple of opportunities for them to see both the APEC Ministers and the Leaders in Manila. So, that is that.

  8. New APEC membership

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: Lastly, the issue of new membership. As some of you may recall, in 1993, in Seattle, it was announced that APEC would invoke a three-year moratorium. That will expire at the end of this year, so we have to come to some kind of conclusion. Frankly speaking, there are two schools of thought, basically. One is to propose an extension of the moratorium, in view of the important timing in which all the APEC Members are involved in formulating Action Plans. Therefore, it is no time to expand the membership other than deepen their activities. Although they are not really claiming that APEC membership should be closed forever. That is one school of thought and the other school is trying to stick to the principle of open regionalism, because when the three-year moratorium expires, they claim that APEC has to open its membership. There is no agreement and no consensus up until now on this particular issue. We are expecting that early next week, in the Senior Officials Meeting, there will be a serious discussion in an effort to reach some kind of a consensus in this issue.

  9. Japan's contribution to the APEC process is Manila

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: Now, let me turn to this issue of how Japan will contribute to the APEC process this year. The first point is about Action Plans. Japan was the Chair country of the Osaka Meeting last year and is in a position to put together and make as much contribution as possible in terms of formulating its own IAP and contributing to the consultation process, which was implicit in the Osaka Action Agenda. To be more specific, although I cannot disclose the contents of Japan's Initial Action Plan at this point, we have put in, largely, many deregulation measures and telecommunication areas and investment areas and standard and conformance areas. In those areas, we put together substantive measures in our own IAP, which is very voluminous and has already been conveyed to the Government of the Philippines at the end of last month. I should also mention the contribution that Japan has made in the process of formulating the Action Plan. The first drafts of the Action Plans were tabled by all APEC members by May this year. They have been drafted, reviewed and revised a couple of times already, and this took place by bilateral consultations, basically. In that process, Japan has produced its own comments on all other Members' IAPs -- there are 17 of them, of course. We have put our comments on paper and sent them out to all other Members for their reference and consideration. Some have naturally written back their own replies to our comments. A similar process has of course been reciprocated to our IAP. So, this is the kind of consultation that the Osaka Action Agenda envisioned last year. We are running in the front line in this process, together with Australia. I would like to draw your attention to the Japanese contribution to the liberalization and facilitation projects in trade and investment. Some of you may recall that last year in Osaka, then-Prime Minister Murayama proposed that Japan would contribute a certain amount of money to those quality projects which are conducive to promoting liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment in the APEC region. In the whole process of liberalization and facilitation, because of the lack of financial resources, some projects might stall, so it was thought to be a good idea to give financial help in some cases. This year, we have agreed upon a specific formula, and we have established in the APEC central fund the Trade and Investment Liberalization and Facilitation (TILF) Special Account. At official levels, already 30 projects have been approved and they will be recommended to the Ministerial next week for their consideration. If they get approval, then all 30 will be implemented next year. This is one large contribution on the part of Japan.

  10. Partners for Progress (PFP)

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: Next, the Partners for Progress. This is again a Japanese proposal out of Osaka last year. This is a kind of concept in which each APEC Member is expected or encouraged to bring their own resources, no matter how small they may be, as long as they see that they can do it, they are encouraged to bring out their own resources, to formulate projects together with other members. This is a mutual assistance project. Under this Partners for Progress, there will be three projects that will be approved in the coming Ministerial. The three projects are industrial property rights, standards and conformance and competition policy. These are basically training activities and they will continue for a five year period in cooperation with Thailand and Malaysia.

  11. Long-term issues

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: The last point is the so-called long-term issues. These are food supply, environment and energy. This is also a kind of agenda put forward by then-Prime Minister Murayama last year. In this area in the Asia-Pacific, the high economic growth at a level with the expanding population might bring about a kind of a bottleneck in terms of food demand, the environment and energy demands, so it was proposed that APEC look into the matter squarely. This year is the first year, and we have already established a food task force. The task force has already met twice this year and we agreed on a basic framework and a work schedule. About food supply and demand and distribution and processing and food-related environmental issues together with future supply and demand trends; these are the four sectors in which analytical work will be conducted next year. Of course, in other areas of energy and environment, analytical work was similarly being carried out. So, this year is an initial year for this long-term agenda to be reported to the Ministerial. I believe I should stop here. If you have any questions, I am pleased to answer.

  12. Japan's Individual Action Plans

    Q: What is the possibility that your Individual Action Plan will be further amended to the Ministerial? I am thinking in particular from an Australian perspective of the strategic aspect of some further liberalization of your agricultural sector.

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: It is really not practical to expect that any changes will be made during the Ministerial or the Leaders Meetings, because we have already submitted the formal and final Action Plan for this year to the Government of the Philippines. They will then be busy putting all 18 of them together. So, that is that, but as I said it is an evolving process and we have to keep reviewing the process and come up with a revised process at the next Vancouver meeting.

  13. New APEC membership

    Q: As to the issue of new memberships, you said that there are two schools of thought: one is extension of moratorium and one is the openness principle. What is the Japanese Government's position on this?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: We are not really taking a very extreme line on this matter, to be frank. We can understand both factors, because we understand that this is a very important time for APEC, but at the same time, we have to maintain the basic principle of open regionalism. We do not think that we should be divided over this issue, so we have to reach some sort of consensus. Hopefully, we can reach some conclusion before the Ministerial Meeting.

    Q: Just a follow-up to his question and then a separate question, also. If the Individual Action Plans of the 18 members are basically in final form, are they simply announced, and that's all, in Manila, or do the Ministers and Leaders look at them carefully enough to critique them and make suggestions about what your country ought to do for next year, to each other?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: I believe, practically speaking, it would not be feasible for them to review themselves and make any sort of changes on the spot, because they are so voluminous. Each one of them would be scores of pages, dozens of pages; in the Japanese case, maybe 90 pages or so. They certainly have no time for these things, and it is not the Ministers' job to do. In the process of formulating the Action Plan, their opinions and guidance has been already taken on board. It has been brought into the equation. So, they will be just tabled. But, what they can do is give political guidance in the next year's progress, or in the years ahead. That is, they can mention something about the importance of revising and putting in more substantive points or improvements and so on. Maybe they will mention the importance of bringing in their concerns and interests of their business sectors, for example, into this review process, and so on. So, that is that.

    Q: A separate question. The category of economic and technical cooperation and the idea of putting more focus on that, can you give more concrete examples, maybe not of specific places, but categories of actual projects that that means? For instance, does this refer to things like port development or port improvements? And if so, does Japan have a separate fund, or does APEC have a separate fund to finance those projects? What are we actually talking about here?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: We are not talking about a separate fund, or a new fund even. This is, basically, a kind of effort to put into a framework this variety of projects. There are several areas of priorities. There is no mention of a specific project in the document. The priority areas, important areas, are unanimously considered by most of the Members, like human resource development and capital market development and so on.

    Q: Did you say in this category that there were already 300 to 350 projects done, or was that a different category?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: I cannot say for sure if there were more than 300 or not. But, it is said that yes, over the past five years or so, there have been 350 or so projects. Of course many of them are already completed. Still, a number of them are ongoing. It was considered to be a good idea to bring this into a priority area and give guiding principles, to bring in better coordination among projects.

    Q: Were those projects which, you mean, were originally planned outside of the APEC framework, but since they are among APEC countries --?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: No, they are still within the APEC boundaries.

    Q: Can you give me any examples of what kind of projects those were?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: This type of document does not contain any specific projects.

    Q: But, I think you are saying that projects exist out there. I am looking for some way to make this have meaning to readers. What is the meat here? What does this refer to?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: This is a framework declaration. As I said, up until now, older projects have been underway, initiated by the individual forums like the Energy Working Group, or the Human Resources Development Working Group, and Small- and Medium-enterprises Working Group, and so on. There is no -- I should not say no -- each voluntary initiative has been inspected, hence the variety of activities are ongoing. If we bring in some better coordination in this situation, maybe we can see a more effective realization of projects. This is the idea. We have to wait and see how we can apply these guiding principles and areas from now up to the coming years.

  14. Significance of Individual Action Plans, and the future targets of APEC

    Q: May I ask a very general question? There has been some commentary leading up to the Philippines APEC Meetings that the progress in APEC has slowed down, that Individual Action Plans do not contain many significant measures, and this raises a question about the future of APEC. Do you agree with that? Could you also say what, in the short-term, are the benefits for Japan of its participation in APEC?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: For Japan?

    Q: For Japan.

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: For this year?

    Q: Over the next few years. Say the next three years.

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: This is a very good question. The answer to the first question is "yes." I think that most important for this year is that -- you must understand that this is a phenomenal thing that all 18 APEC Members could come up with a voluminous Action Plan. Of course, I would think it would be a first such attempt in this area. Thanks to this exercise, not to mention the current systems and measures and policies, and so on, which make all the activities, which make all of the policies of each country very transparent. They even mention new policies and measures to be taken in the future. I think it is a very important thing for APEC to see the 18 countries produce their Individual Action Plans. This is again, I remind you, the basis for an ongoing process. Next year we will make improvements, and the year after that we will make further improvements, so that we can reach the overall target of Bogor at the end of the day. This is a really long-term process. The first year was translating those words into actions, and these measures will start being implemented from January of 1997.

  15. Implementation by Japan of the principles of the Bogor Declaration

    Q: A few months ago in a speech on "open skies," in Europe, an American official made a reference to some concerns that the United States apparently has over whether Japan views aviation as a category included in the Bogor Declaration for free and open trade. Apparently, there was some indication that this might come out as a point of friction in Manila. Do you see the question of Japan's long-term commitment in the aviation field being a point of discussion in Manila, and does Japan consider that the Bogor Declaration applies to aviation?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: I do not really think this issue will be taken up as a friction point in the coming Manila Meeting. Basically, we have exchanged our views with our counterparts, so there is a mutual understanding of our mutual positions. The second question -- whether we consider that the Bogor principles apply to this area -- the Bogor Declaration is a very dynamic, bold target. This was put into more concrete terms in the Osaka Action Agenda, on a consensus basis. If you look at the Osaka Action Agenda, there is mention of comprehensiveness as one of its principles. This principle of comprehensiveness is to cover all the areas. So, in principle, no area is an exception under this principle of comprehensiveness. Specifically, what we are going to do jointly within the APEC framework is written in the Osaka Action Agenda. So, whatever is written there will be implemented by us.

    Q: What are some of the more important bilateral meetings that the Japanese leaders will take part in? I am thinking of President Clinton and President Jiang.

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: I am sorry, but I am not covering the bilateral side. I think you need to ask that question to the regional policy people.

  16. The APEC Collective Action Plan

    Q: On the first page of the handout -- the Collective Action Plan -- I am not clear what that is a reference to. Could you describe a little bit more what is the Collective Action Plan, as compared to the Individual Action Plan?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: This is an Action Plan such that all Members are involved collectively, that is to establish a kind of tariff database of APEC, or to hold an investment symposium. They can only be done jointly, and they can collectively identify priority areas for the alignment of international standards. They are the kind of activities which they can jointly enact.

    Q: Is the APEC Database a specific proposal you expect to come out of Manila?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: I think so.

    Q: An APEC tariff database?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: An APEC tariff database, yes. There are, I think, many of those.

  17. Possible deregulation measures involving produce

    Q: One quick question. I think I saw something just in the past 24 hours of an indication from an official that speeding up customs procedures, especially for agricultural imports, would be part of Japan's Individual Action Plan. Can you confirm that, and say something about what kind of significance that would have?

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: I am not in a position to confirm the contents of our IAPs.

    Q: But, you did say something about deregulation --.

    FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL: Yes, if that is part of the Individual Action Plan of Japan, I think it will be significant. I think that is a kind of effort to shorten the process, and quicken the process. There are many technicalities involved in this. It is a kind of deregulation measure we might be looking at, in order to bring about further rationalization in the process. As a result of that, probably the importation of, say, fruits or other produce, will find it easier to come into the Japanese market. Thank you very much.

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