APEC Can Take Proactive Measures To Address Issues Affecting Member Economies

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 18 (Bernama) -- The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) may not be a body responsive towards facing global economic crisis but it has been reacting actively to critical issues affecting member economies' trade and investments in the region, a senior official said on Wednesday. APEC Secretariat executive director Muhamad Noor Yacob said the grouping's prime focus has always been better and smoother trade and investment facilitation among the 21-member economies. "This has been the frequent criticism that APEC has not been responding quickly enough to crisis, but we are concerned over issues that can harm trade like natural disasters and epidemics like the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)," he told a roundtable talk on APEC's outlook for this year. Muhamad Noor was speaking on APEC's prospects as a body that responses quickly to bigger crisis like the current global economic crisis or the 1997/1998 Asian financial crisis. He said organisations like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are better equipped to handle these kind of crises. "We can't be everything to everyone," he said. However, the annual meet among member economies would certainly provide inputs to APEC on ways to tackle economic and financial crises, he said. Alluding to what was happening in Japan after the tsunami and earthquake last year, he said, APEC, via the Emergency Preparedness Working Group, has been looking at ways on how natural disasters could be tackled, especially handling issues that could disrupt trade and investment flow. Among work done by the working group was building a library of APEC-Wide principles and information resources to support development of emergency preparedness capabilities in the region. Muhamad Noor said last year was not only a year of economic difficulties, but also a year of natural disasters that hit Japan, New Zealand and Thailand, inflicting widespread devastation, including in APEC-member economies. "This year, challenges and risks remain in many parts of the world, but many economists argue that Asia-Pacific will continue to lead the global economic recovery and that the outlook for this year is cause for optimism," he added. Some 100 Malaysia's industry players and "think tanks" are attending the roundtable hosted by the Institute of Strategic and International Studies. -- BERNAMA Malaysia