Pacific Currents

Ed Brzytwa
Information Technology Industry Council

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the Philippines, government officials, industry representatives (including ITI), academics, and other stakeholders have been discussing how to advance regional economic cooperation and break down barriers to trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region. During the forum’s three weeks of meetings and sessions, these experts have been communicating with their constituents at home as well as with each other primarily through digital means. Their communications burst through the Internet all over the world at the speed of light in the form of digitized data crossing borders many times over. That amazing connectedness acts as a metaphor for the larger transformations to our world. ITI last week raised awareness of the threat that data localization requirements in the region and around the world pose to that connectedness, economic growth, trade, investment, and job creation.

Andrew Elek
Australian National University (ANU)

As APEC celebrates its 25th anniversary in Beijing, we are publishing an abridged version of the chapter on the founding of APEC that was part of PECC’s own 25th anniversary publication in 2005. The chapter was written by Dr Andrew Elek, the chair of APEC’s first Senior Officials Meeting.

Professor Christopher Findlay
Executive Dean of the Faculty of the Professions at the University of Adelaide
Vice-Chair of AUSPECC

Connectivity is a hot topic in regional cooperation and rightly so.  Greater levels of and improved performance in connectivity saves real resources, improves access to markets, plugs economies into regional supply chains, raises income and helps deal with shocks and disasters.  The values of connectivity apply to movement of goods, to movements of people and provision of services.

Rubén Calderón
Portfolio Manager, Fidelity Asset Management, Global Asset Allocation
This article is part of Fidelity Asset Management’s ‘Leadership Series’ and appears here with the express permission of the author

The economic malaise in the aftermath of the global credit crisis has called for extraordinary monetary policy responses, especially in the form of quantitative easing (QE). While central banks have focused on the unique circumstances of their own nations, the collective magnitude of QE has had unintended consequences beyond the borders of their constituencies. This paper will discuss the consequences of QE outside of developed markets—where most of the QE has taken place—and its effects on emerging markets. Specifically, it will highlight the massive liquidity pouring into emerging markets, identify the primary source and reason for the excess liquidity, and provide specific examples of how QE has inadvertently disrupted emerging-market currencies, exports, inflation levels and more.

Growth in the Asia-Pacific this year is expected to increase slightly to 3.7 percent from last year’s 3.5 percent. Looking ahead to 2013, growth will be much the same at 3.9 percent. However, these forecasts, based on the IMF’s World Economic Outlook are based on some assumptions: that financial conditions on the Eurozone will ease; expansionary policies in emerging markets will gain traction; and the United States will find a solution to the fiscal dilemma it faces at the end of the year. In short, the downside risks to the forecast are enormous and uncertainty remains abundant.

Professor Christopher Findlay
Executive Dean of the Faculty of the Professions at the University of Adelaide
Vice-Chair of AUSPECC

Republished from the East Asia Forum

The weather was awful outside the WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva last week, but there was some sunshine within the convention centre.

Russia acceded as a member, along with Samoa, Montenegro and Vanuatu (the club still attracts new members, and as one minister said: ‘as far as I know, nobody has asked to leave’).

Peter A. Petri
Non-resident Senior Fellow with the East-West Center
Professor of International Finance at Brandeis University

Republished from the East West Center

(This analysis originally appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Oct. 16, 2011 as part of a monthly series on regional Asia Pacific issues leading up to the APEC leaders’ meetings in Honolulu in November)

In the last half century, world trade has grown twice as fast as output and helped to lift the majority of the world’s people from poverty—a feat unimaginable a generation ago. When APEC leaders meet in Honolulu next month, they will represent countries that account for half of world trade. Can APEC help to keep the engine humming for another half century?

Professor Christopher Findlay
Executive Dean of the Faculty of the Professions at the University of Adelaide
Vice-Chair of AUSPECC

Republished from the East Asia Forum

Commentators on these pages have been pondering the implications of the Fukushima explosion on Japan’s energy policy and its strategy for international purchases. Samuels suggests an extensive re-examination of energy policy in Japan and a possible shift toward renewable energy. Vivoda pointed to a scenario in which the share of nuclear power in Japan’s total electricity consumption could fall. This share previously accounted for 30 per cent of consumption, and even as little as 12 months ago the plan was to raise this to 50 per cent.

Global Services Network Update
republished from http://globalservicesnetwork.com/GSNOctober32011.html

Following the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) Conference on Trade in Services in Hong Kong earlier this year, the PECC included in their annual survey of opinion leaders across the Asia Pacific the specific question "should APEC members take the lead in promoting a plurilateral agreement on services?"  72% of all respondents responded positively, with only 5% disagreeing. 70% percent of government officials responded positively, as did 76% of business leaders.

Ganeshan Wignaraja
Principal Economist, Office of Regional Economic Integration, Asian Development Bank

Slow progress in the WTO Doha Round trade talks has seen China and India have focussing on free trade agreements (FTAs) as a vehicle of trade strategy and economic diplomacy. By mid-2011, the two Asian giants were among Asia's leaders in FTA activity with 11 each in effect in both China and India. The number of FTAs under negotiation and proposed suggested that such activity will rise in the future, as China has another 13 agreements in the pipeline and India another 20. China has FTAs with ASEAN, Hong Kong, Macao, Chinese Taipei, Pakistan, New Zealand, Chile and Peru, among others.

Masahiro Kawai, Dean and CEO, Asian Development Bank Institute
Ganeshan Wignaraja, Principal Economist, Office of Regional Economic Integration, Asian Development Bank

The inability to conclude the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Development Round has spawned a proliferation of bilateral and plurilateral free trade  agreements (FTAs) across the globe. While East Asia is a relative newcomer to FTAs, the region has seen a dramatic increase in the number of such agreements  in recent years. The explosion of FTAs in East Asia, led by the large economies of Northeast Asia—the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ROK)—is tied to the need to support sophisticated production networks through continued trade and investment liberalization, while also serving as a defensive response to the spread of FTAs elsewhere in the world.

Julius Caesar Parrenas, PhD
Senior Advisory Fellow, Institute for International Monetary Affairs (IIMA)¹

(posted from: http://www.iima.or.jp/pdf/newsletter2010/NLNo_37_e.pdf)

The recent G20 and APEC meetings in Seoul and Yokohama underscored the importance of structural reforms. While G20 leaders struggled over the way forward to achieve sustained global economic recovery, APEC leaders went ahead to launch work toward a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), possibly through the expansion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Embedded in the G20 and APEC leaders’ statements are references to a key issue that will influence the success of current efforts to sustain global recovery and advance free trade.

Preamble

Recognizing the access to adequate food sources as a fundamental requirement for human security and national security, we, the 2010 PECC Youth Delegation have compiled the following report in the hope that it may inform discussions within PECC in regards to the issue of food security.

Introduction

Recent food price hikes have drawn the attention of the world’s policy-makers and news media to food security. But what is “food security” and how can it be measured? For the purpose of this report we have adopted the definition of food security, as defined in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s 1996 Declaration on World Food Security:

Dr Hadi Soeastro talking at the USAPC Annual Washington Conference

Dr Hadi Soesastro, founding member of PECC, Executive Director of the Indonesian PECC committee (INCPEC) and international chair of the Pacific Trade and Development Forum (PAFTAD) passed away on 4 May.

Pak Hadi, as he was fondly called by Indonesians and others alike was one of the intellectual founders of regionalism in Southeast Asia and the broader Asia-Pacific.