How Apec can help drive growth amid fresh optimism for Asia-Pacific cooperation

Name: What is Apec all about?
Uploaded: 2021-02-14T21:30:13.000Z
Duration: 1 min 58 s
Description: What is Apec all about?

With Trump out of the frame and potentially strong New Zealand leadership of Apec, region-wide collaboration is once again high on the agenda

Given its position at the heart of the region’s most recent trade agreements, there is huge potential for Apec to liberalise and boost growth in the Asia-Pacific

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Leaders are seen during the start of the online Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok on November 20, 2020. With US president Donald Trump, bottom right, now out of office, there is renewed optimism about progress in promoting regional prosperity and integration. Photo: EPA-EFE

David Dodwell

Published: 5:30am, 15 Feb 2021Updated: 5:32am, 15 Feb 2021

After more than 12 years supporting Hong Kong business input to the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, I am, with some sadness, stepping down this month.

It is a good time, then, to do a kind of audit of an organisation I have always admired and valued but has never been fashionable. International trade economists often joked that the name was no more than four adjectives in search of a noun. With no treaty-making power, it is regularly dismissed as nothing more than a talk shop.

Many say its only material achievement is the precious Apec Business Travel Card. It might not be very useful in the midst of the pandemic’s international travel lockdowns, but it has always been a source of deep envy for those travellers so frequently stuck in interminable airport immigration queues.

Ever the contrarian, I have always disagreed on Apec’s merits. The absence of treaty-making powers is a blessing, if for no other reason than that it clears lawyers from the room.

I am reminded of a meeting in the spring of 2011, when the US chaired Apec, and its motif for the year was “get stuff done”. Hong Kong’s then-Apec Business Advisory Council (Abac) member Anthony Nightingale flew in to the still-snowy Big Sky, Montana, just a stone’s throw from Yellowstone Park, to present a business-sector proposal for Apec to adopt a “non-binding investment principles” document.

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What is Apec all about?

Within minutes of the discussion starting, lawyers joining the Australian delegation butted in, seeking to amend wording. The US chair called the lawyers to a halt, insisting the legal contribution was neither helpful nor welcome. “This is a ‘non-binding’ proposal. If a member does not want to adopt it, they don’t have to. Let’s be aspirational here,” he said in a very “get stuff done” tone.

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