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SCMP Reporter

A PACIFIC Basin business group has called for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) headquarters to be located in the region.

  The WTO is expected to replace the trading body GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) on January 1.

    Robert Lees, international director-general of the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC), said yesterday the group decided to issue the call because the Pacific Basin region was now the centre of world trade.

     ''We want to point out to the world that things have changed and that the centre of trade and commerce currently and in the future will be in the Pacific Basin region,'' he said.

  The PBEC, which held its 27th international general meeting in Kuala Lumpur last week, is an organisation committed to free trade and open markets.

  With a membership of more than 1,004 companies from 17 countries, including the United States, China and Russia, it is considered one of the most powerful private business groupings in the world.

  Mr Lees, who stopped over in Hong Kong on his way home to the PBEC secretariat in Hawaii, said there was no reason for the WTO to be located in Geneva, Switzerland, simply because GATT was based there.

  He said the WTO was a new organisation, ''not just GATT renamed''.

  Mr Lees said: ''It's a new era and we should be looking forward to the next century.

  ''We want the headquarters to exist not only for symbolism but to serve practical aspects, which means it should be in the middle of world trade.''   Mr Lees said the Pacific Basin was the world's fastest-growing economic region, not only in terms of investment but also in trade and capital formation.

  He said: ''It's only natural that the region be given due credit for its incredible success. The key word in WTO is its second word - 'trade' - and this is [the Pacific Basin] the heart of trading countries.''   Although PBEC members did not name any regional capital as its choice as WTO headquarters, Mr Lees said Singapore came up in discussions as a possible venue.

  Singapore already houses the Asia Pacific Economic Community (APEC) secretariat, which is seen as the governmental counterpart of PBEC, and is also an important trading centre of Asia.

  Mr Lees said the city-state had ''done a good job of being the home of APEC and, in any case, it was rumoured that the Singapore Government was putting together a proposal for the WTO to be housed in the country''.

  Singapore is not a member of the PBEC but Mr Lees said he expected the country's business community to join the group within the next 12 months.

    In fact, he said, it was premature to name any possible venues to house the WTO as no member had yet come forward with a bid.

  One of the aims in the PBEC issuing the call was for its ''member economies'' to come forward with a bid, and the group would do everything it could to support it, Mr Lees said.

    He said the PBEC committees would be contacting their respective foreign and trade ministers to ask them to consider putting forward a bid for their countries to be the WTO headquarters.

  ''We would like to see more of our member economies come forward and put themselves up as candidates.'' 



WTO urged to set up base in the region