Nam Duck-woo, a founding member of PECC and first chair of KOPEC (Korea committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation) passed away on May 18th, 2013 in Seoul at the age of 89. Dr. Nam earned a doctorate in economics at Oklahoma State University and was teaching at Sogang University when in 1969 he was recruited by then President Park Chung-hee to serve as the finance minister. He remained in the position till 1974 and from 1974 to 1978, he served as the deputy prime minister in charge of economic policies at the height of Korea’s industrial development. Under the next president, Chun Doo-hwan, he served as the prime minister from 1980 to 1982. 

Dr. Nam held the position of KOPEC chair from 1982 to 1993. During the earlier part of his chairmanship, he fervently supported the rationale and aims of PECC as such:

“I think the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), a tripartite body with representatives from business, academic and government circles, provides an excellent example of how the various interest groups can work together to establish an effective mechanism for Pacific Cooperation. I would like to suggest that the regional countries should take advantage of the opportunity offered by the PECC, and use it as a model for future institutionalized forms of cooperation. In particular, the PECC can be extremely beneficial as a kind of information clearinghouse from which the countries in the Pacific Basin can obtain information on the policies, economies and strategies of their neighbors. This in itself will go a long way towards improving cooperation, especially in terms of economic and industrial policies, in the Pacific.” (July 1983)

At the 25th anniversary celebration of PECC held in Seoul in September 1995, Dr. Nam fondly recalled that “PECC had created the political will among the regional governments to launch APEC,” and that “PECC’s another highly significant achievement during the 1980s was the formulation and advocacy of the so-called ‘open-regionalism.’” He congratulated PECC for serving as the “guiding principle of the APEC” and reiterated that PECC’s value was not just on the traditional issues of tariffs but “also on many other, often less transparent, impediments to mutually beneficial economic integration in the Pacific.”

He is survived by his wife and three children. Please leave your personal comments here.

The 20th China Tianjin Investment & Trade Fair (Tianjin Fair) and the 9th PECC International Trade and Investment Expo will be held at the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center from May 10th to 14th 2013. 
Enterprises and delegations from more than 20 countries have been confirmed to attend the two fairs which are organized by the municipal government to showcase Tianjin and Binhai New Area and attract investment. Three special focus areas of this year’s event will occupy 60,000 square meters of exhibition space. 

Last year, the Tianjin Fair ended with business deals worth RMB142.9 billion, up 9.9 percent from the 18th Fair.

Taken from WhatsOnTianjin

FPTPEC held its annual meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Michel Rocard, as the Chair of FPTPEC - position he has held during the last 13 years - opened the meeting with a speech dedicated to the role of the Pacific region in the world economic context. Three main presentations followed: 1) The role and necessity of the French presence in the Pacific, by Michel Rocard; 2) The development of natural resources in the Pacific, a geostrategic approach, by Admiral Aubriot, DCNS group; 3) The major development programmes in the Pacific, by Ambassador Hadelin La Tour du Pin, Permanent Secretary for the Pacific.

The members of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council mourn the passing of the Honorable RICHARD M. FAIRBANKS, III . Amb Richard Fairbank was President of the then United States National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation from 1986-1992. As the Convenor of the Ad Hoc Committee studying the PECC Charter he drafted the PECC Charter which was formally adopted at PECC VIII in Singapore on 22 May 1991. Amb Fairbanks was PECC International Chair from 1991-1992. In September 1992 in San Francisco, PECC Ninth General Meeting (PECC IX) issued the statement “The San Francisco Declaration: A Pacific Model for Global Economic Cooperation” on the next strategic stage in the PECC process.

Ambassador Fairbanks was the Founder and Chairman of the Board Layalina Productions, he passed away on February 6, 2013. Mr. Fairbanks spent his professional life as a lawyer and in government service following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather Charles Warren Fairbanks, Vice-President under Theodore Roosevelt.

A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, Mr. Fairbanks received his A.B. from Yale University on a NROTC scholarship and his J.D. magna cum laude from Columbia University School of Law where he was Business Manager of the Columbia Law Review and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.

Upon graduation from Columbia in 1969, Mr. Fairbanks spent two years as an associate attorney with the Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter.

In 1971, Mr. Fairbanks was named the Special Assistant to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, William Ruckleshaus and also served as an Adjunct Professor of Environmental Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1971 to 1972. In July 1971, he became a Staff Assistant at the White House Domestic Council and became Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment of the Council in December 1972.

After leaving government service in 1974, Mr. Fairbanks was a founding partner of the Washington law firm which was known, prior to his departure in 1981, as Beveridge, Fairbanks & Diamond.

Mr. Fairbanks resumed government service in January 1981 when he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations. In February 1982, he was named Special Advisor to the Secretary of State with the rank of Ambassador and his first assignment in that position was Special Negotiator for the Middle East Peace Process. In January 1984, President Reagan nominated Mr. Fairbanks to become Ambassador at Large. He was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 1984. His major assignment in that capacity was to develop Pacific Basin co-operative efforts for the U.S.

In September 1985, Ambassador Fairbanks left government service to resume private law practice as a partner in the Washington office of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky, & Walker, where he assumed responsibility as Managing Partner from December 1988 to February 1992.

From 1988 to 1991, Mr. Fairbanks served on the Investment Policy Advisory Committee of the U.S. Trade Representative. In May 1991 President Bush named Mr. Fairbanks to serve on the President's Task Force on U.S. Government International Broadcasting. In February 1992, Mr. Fairbanks was named Senior Counsel at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. In March 1994 he became Managing Director of Domestic and International Issues, and was named President and CEO in May 1999. In April of 2000, he became a Counselor at the Center, where he is also a Trustee.

His other activities include: Member, Boards of Directors: SEACOR Holdings and Clarion Industries; Board of Visitors, Columbia University School of Law; Member, Council on Foreign Relations; and Board Member, Council of American Ambassadors.

Following the events of 9/11, Mr. Fairbanks became the founding Chairman of Layalina Productions, a U.S. Arabic language television company producing new cross-cultural "television diplomacy" programs to improve relations between the United States and the Muslim world. 

Mr. Fairbanks is survived by his wife, Ann; his two sons, Woods of Seattle, Washington and Jonathan of Houston, Texas; and six grandchildren. Services were held in Florida.

PECC expresses sincere condolences to the family of Dr. Jeffrey L.S. Koo, former chair of CTPECC. Dr. Koo will be fondly remembered by members of PECC for his dedication to the promotion of cooperation and understanding in the Asia-Pacific. 

As a pioneer of the Asia-Pacific cooperation process, Dr. Koo took over the chairmanship of CTPECC in 1994 and presided over the Finance Committee of PECC for many years. In addition to his support for PECC's evolution and expansion, he had been a thoughtful contributor to setting a regional agenda for cooperation. In light of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-1998, Dr. Koo had been advocating and promoting the development of capital markets in the region, especially the development of local currency bond markets to enable the region's corporate sector to avoid the double mismatch in currencies and tenure that had proved so damaging during that period. He was a staunch advocate of public-private sector cooperation and at the PECC General Meeting held in Brunei in 2003 he urged:

"Any effort to strengthen and develop financial markets will only succeed if it is able to make market players move in the right direction. This is why government and business should work closely together in these efforts. PECC, of course, is an ideal forum for such cooperation, and should receive greater support from governments and the business community."

The China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation (CNCPEC) held a seminar on the Trans-pacific Partnership (TPP) in Beijing. Speakers from various institutions have contributed to the seminar including the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Institute of Strategic and International Studies of Malaysia (ISIS), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS), Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade & Negotiations, China Academy for International Trade and Economic Cooperation (CAITEC), and the International Institute for Asia Pacific Studies (INSAPS) of Thailand.

The program agenda and presentations are available for download in pdf files.

For more information, please contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Dr. Susy Frankel has joined the board of NZPECC. She is a Professor of Law at the University of Victoria in Wellington.  Her main research and teaching areas are intellectual property law and international trade law. She also teaches the law of contract and has published numerous articles and book chapters and given conference presentations on various aspects of copyright, trade marks and patents, and international trade . 

She is also the Director of the New Zealand Centre of International Economic Law and is currently leading the Law Foundation Regulatory Reform project. Before joining Victoria University in 1997, Susy practiced law in New Zealand and London. Susy qualified as Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in 1988 and as a Solicitor of England & Wales in 1991.

NZPECC held its AGM on June 20, 2012 in Wellington at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.  It was attended by all board members, a selection of extended membership, the Minister for Trade the Hon Tim Groser and chaired by Denis McNamara.  A short socialising session followed the AGM where members were able to discuss the items raised in the meeting and were able to canvass the Hon Groser on his thoughts for the direction of open and liberal trade in the region. 

Download the entire NZPECC annual report 2012 (pdf, 637KB)

Minister of Trade, Mr. Tim Groser's address to PECC is available here (external link).

Address to the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council: TPP and New Zealand’s export future
The Honourable Tim Groser, MP
20 June 2012

I would like to start with a small reflective tribute to the late Sir Frank Holmes, an absolute stalwart of the PECC. This must be the first formal or informal PECC meeting I have attended in the last thirty years without Sir Frank being an integral part of the discussion.

Sir Frank, who passed away only recently, was a considerable intellectual influence on me and no doubt many people of my generation interested in international trade. Some of the first applied economics papers I read were written by Sir Frank, often in conjunction with Professor Peter Lloyd for the NZ Institute of Economic Research.

Like other international economists of the time – I am thinking of Richard Lipsey, Max Corden and others – Frank and Peter took the theory of the second-best, out of sophisticated game theory literature, and applied it in their case to NZ’s circumstances of the 1960s and 1970s. Put simply, this thinking hugely influenced the design and policy rationale of New Zealand’s first ever genuine FTA – the CER Agreement.

That first comprehensive FTA, finally ratified in 1983, had in turn a huge impact on policy thinking on FTAs around the world. It was literally the ‘gold standard’ of FTAs of its day. To say ‘of its day’ is probably understating its influence; fundamental design principles like progressive liberalisation over many years to deal with sensitivities, comprehensive product coverage, carefully designed review clauses and so forth continue to be valid and to influence Australian and New Zealand negotiating approaches, thirty years on. Read more...

The center of dynamism has shifted over the last six decades from the North Atlantic to the Asia-Pacific. Now is the era of the Asia-Pacific with extended connection to India/ South Asia and the Middle East., said Dr. Narongchai Akrasanee, Chair of TNCPEC.  One can also see the changing patterns of Thailand's trade and investment vis-a-vis the rest of Asia-Pacific region. There has been noticeable change in investment from heavy concentration on foreign loans (62%) in 1995 to more share in portfolio investment and foreign direct investment (FDI) by 2010. 

Dr. Narongchai was speaking at a symposium organized by the International Institute for Asia Pacific Studies (INSAPS) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Bangkok University. Dr. Narongchai is also the President of INSAPS. 

Thailand has been experiencing slow and fluctuating growth due to some structural problems - limits on energy resources and limits in innovative/ creative as well as industrial growth. Moving on from competitiveness derived from low loabor cost and mass production in the 1950s-1970s, and value creations from niche market strategies used during the globalization period of the 1990s, Thailand should now be taking its next steps of development towards achieving a sustainable society based on green productivity and competitiveness.

Download the entire presentation by Dr. Narongchai Akrasanee (pdf, 648KB)

Dr. Djisman Simandjuntak, Chair of INCPEC, spoke of the rise of Asia in world economy, where the former's share in world trade and investment flows, as well as knowledge output and competitiveness in sports and arts have visibly increased over the recent years. Still, there are many areas for improvement: there is sub-regional gap of prosperity within Asia; and access to health, education and capital are not balanced. Through a SWOT analysis, Dr. Simandjuntak recounted the opportunities and strengths of Asian economies that must be harnessed, i.e. mastering the art of developing progressively, crafting an Asian community in an incremental way centered around ASEAN with eventual consolidation into a coherent architecture, and optimizing networks of functional co-operation with prospects for continued upgrade in the future. 

Download the entire presentation of Dr. Djisman Simandjuntak (pdf, 68KB)
 
With invited speakers from around the region, the symposium provided an intellectual discussion forum to address how Thailand can reap benefits from dynamic political, economic and social changes taking place in the ASEAN as well as Asia Pacific region.

Download: Program agenda 

[In the photo from left to right:
1) Dr. Charoen Kanthawongs, Bangkok Ubiversity Founder;
2) Dr. Narongchai Akrasanee, President of INSAPS, Chairman of TNCPEC;
3) Mrs. Apiradi Tantraporn, Executive Chairperson of INSAPS, TNCPEC comittee;
4) Dr. Mathana Santiwat, President of Bangkok University;
5) Dr. Djisman Simandjuntuk, Chairman of the Executive Board of Prasetiya Mulya Foundation and Chairman of the Board of Directors of CSIS, Jakarta, Chair of INCPEC; and
6) Mr. Petch Osathanugrah, Bangkok University Owner]











[In the photo from left to right: 
1) Mr. Pises Iamsakulrat, Managing Director, Lampang Food Products Co., Ltd.;
2) Dr. Kanit Sangsubhan, Director, the Fiscal Policy Research Institute (FPRI);
3) Ms. Vimon Kidchob, Director General, Department of International Economic Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, TNPEC Executive Director;
4) Mr. Winichai Chamchaeng, Director, INSAPS;
5) Dr. Suthad Setboonsarng, Former Thailand Trade Representative; and
6) Mr. Kavi Chongkittavorn, Columnist, The Nation.]

Dr. David Hong has been elected as the new Chair for CTPECC (Chinese Taipei committee for PECC).  Dr. Hong takes over from Dr. Jeffrey L S Koo, former CTPECC Chair. Dr. Hong is one of the founding members of PECC and has remained engaged in various PECC projects throughout the last thirty years. He is currently the President of Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER).

The 19th Tianjin Fair and 8th PECC International Expo attracted participation from 26 economies, with over 8,500 companies represented including Unilever, Samsung, COFCO, and Shenhua. Mr. Jusuf Wanandi, Co-Chair of PECC, met with the Vice Mayor of Tianjin, Mr. Ren Xuefeng and recounted the continued success of Tianjin fair over the past years and renewed their mutual commitment to strengthening business ties across the Asia-Pacific region.

Download Jusuf Wanandi's speech (pdf, 82KB)

Dr. Sangkyom Kim was appointed as the Vice Chair of KOPEC on 21 May 2012.  He will continue in his role as the member of the SOTR editorial committee. The new Executive Director of KOPEC is Dr. Chul Chung who takes over this position from Dr. Kim.  Dr. Chung is a director of the National Center for APEC Studies in KIEP as well as the research fellow of KIEP.

Sir Brian Talboys served as the first chair of NZPECC. He had a distinguished political career including being Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand. Sir Brian passed away early June 2012 at the age of 90.

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[photo L-R: former Prime Minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong and Sir Brian Talboys at 8th PECC General Meeting, 1991 Singapore]

Amb. Tang Guoqiang has succeeded Amb. Mei Ping as Chair of CNCPEC starting May 18, 2012. Amb. Tang served on many of China’s diplomatic posts, including Ambassador of PRC accredited to the Czech Republic and to Norway. He was also Head of the Chinese mission to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna. He also served as Deputy Commissioner at the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong. Amb. Tang is a native of Shanghai and has entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1974.

Mr. Durzee Odkhuu has stepped down as the Chair of MONPECC and the former Vice-Chair of MONPECC Mr. Khalzkhuu Narankhuu MP has succeeded the former as the new Chair. Mr. Narankhuu has received an international economics degree from Kiev State University and has entered the foreign ministry in 1978. Since, he has held various senior positions including Minister for Industry and Trade during 2007-2008 and also as the General Director of Erdenet mining plant during 2000-2007. Since 2008, he is serving as a Member of Parliament for the State of Great Hural of Mongolia.