4 - Has APEC Achieved the Mid-term Bogor Goals?

Summary

The Year of Mid-term Bogor Goal

The year 2010 was the mid-term target of the Bogor Goals issued by President Soeharto that “industrialized economies achieve free and open trade by the year 2010, while rest of the economies by 2020”. Have these ambitious goals been achieved? Although it is not well known that APEC has shifted to more realistic timelines since the Asian currency crisis, many people still remember the Bogor Goals, APEC's main appeal. APEC has to reply to this question, which Japan, as its host in 2010, tackled together with senior officials of other economies. Japan's hosting of APEC this particular year may be related to the fact that she also hosted it and produced the Osaka Action Agenda to achieve the Bogor Goals in 1995.

It requires sensitive diplomatic efforts to respond to this question given APEC's “no name, no shame” modality. Despite such diplomatic constraint, economists wish to find out to what extent the Bogor Goals have been achieved so far. This chapter presents an attempt by an independent expert.

At November's Leaders' Meeting and Ministerial Meeting in Japan, APEC provided an assessment of the progress towards achieving the Bogor Goals by the industrialized economies plus alpha. APEC's IAPs (Individual Action Plans) tend to give details of implementations in its positive list that stretches over hundreds of pages but seldom mentions what still remains unachieved. It is contrary to the European Union's formula in which all measures of regional integration are obligatory under the law, and the implementation by individual member states are scored openly so that they are effectively implemented. APEC will not be able to adopt the European Union formula immediately, but the author believes that APEC needs to move in the direction of objective assessment of individual economy's achievements.