The Philippines Hosts the APEC Summit After Two Decades

The Philippines will again play host to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit from November 17 to 20. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III will meet with world leaders and their representatives in the two-day APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting (AELM) on November 18 and 19.

Honored guests

Expected to attend this year’s summit are the presidents, sultan and prime ministers of “Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.” Sending their representatives are Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both of them have called President Aquino earlier, citing their countries’ recent domestic problems as their reason for not attending. President Putin would instead send a Russian delegation headed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Chinese Taipei’s delegation will be headed by Vice-President Siew Wan-chang. There is no word yet on who would be representing Indonesia.

APEC Theme

The meetings are aimed to promote trade and sustainable, comprehensive growth within the region in the Pacific Rim. The APEC-member countries account for about half of the trade around the world, accounting for 60 percent of the global output. It is projected that by 2025, there will be a larger free-trade area for the 21 economies that comprise it. This year’s theme is “Building Inclusive Economies, Building a Better World” that involves a push for comprehensive growth with special emphasis on the role of SMEs (small and medium enterprises), since within the growing economies of the APEC member countries, these SMEs comprise over 97 percent of all businesses.

Trade issues

The focus of the meetings will be on boosting trade opportunities and support the efforts of the 21 economies. For the U.S. President, his trip in Asia, including his attendance in the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, is aimed at promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a mega trade deal that was signed in October by several APEC countries, excluding China. This will be the first meeting of the leaders of the TPP nations after the trade deal was signed. Signatories to the agreement were the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Chile and Peru.

It is expected that President Obama will talk about the territorial issues. There could also be discussions about the current international menace, even if the nations’ leaders want to focus their talks on trade, since these non-economic issues are also interconnected with the economy. Charles Jose, the spokesperson of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines said that although the territorial issues are not part of the main agenda, leaders are likely to discuss this during their retreat, where the talks are less formal.

China on the other hand had already showed signs that it would push for the Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific or FTAAP. This was already discussed during the summit last year that was hosted by China. Wang Shouwen, the Vice-Commerce Minister of China promised that a progress report would be presented in this year’s summit.

Image Copyright: Press/apec.org