Chapter 9 - Recommendations

Summary

The following recommendations are based on my experience at the Secretariat as well as my experience as a manager and multilateral diplomat. They are my personal recommendations and do not represent the views of the United States Government or any non-governmental organization. They are divided into two types: policy recommendations and managerial or administrative recommendations.

Policy Recommendations

Additional Roles for APEC

From the beginning there has been a rash of proposals to expand APEC's mission, including such areas as security, global environment, population and even combating international trade in narcotics. While these proposals may be well-intentioned, they could spell disaster for APEC! Member countries should resist these efforts to expand APEC's role in non-economic areas. Adding security issues to APEC would overload this new organization and distort its focus. APEC's focus should remain on trade and investment liberalization, trade facilitation, and human resource development. There should be a balance in dealing with these issues. Together with the efforts to liberalize trade and investment, emphasis should also be given to programmes that will help the less developed members (for example, in human resource development, technology transfer and assistance to small- and medium-sized enterprises). As APEC matures, there will be more and more pressure to broaden its mission and this should be strongly resisted until the organization has proven itself in trade and economics.

RECOMMENDATION:

Member countries should resist pressure for APEC to take on additional roles beyond trade and economics.

Membership

APEC should concentrate on developing the institution and resist taking in new members until the end of the present three-year moratorium. The only exception that should be made would be for new members of ASEAN and NAFTA. This could mean the entry of Vietnam and perhaps Cambodia, but countries outside these two trade groupings would have to wait until APEC becomes more established. If there is a steady stream of new members, it will be very difficult to consolidate gains and to continue the process of institutionalization. The latter is one of the reasons that Malaysia is such a strong supporter of a rapid increase in membership.