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Michael Michalak, U.S. Senior Official for APEC
Remarks to the Asia Society Washington Corporate Series--
APEC Briefing 2006
Washington DC
December 7, 2006
Welcome to Members of the Asia Society, the Council of the Americas, and the U.S.-APEC Business Coalition.
Thank you very much for that kind introduction, Joe. Good afternoon to all and thank you for having me.
I'm delighted to have the opportunity to take part in the Asia Society's APEC Briefing for 2006. And I'm delighted to be able to meet with the Society's members in New York again tomorrow morning for an APEC breakfast panel. If any of you are thinking of attending both events, save yourself the shuttle fare -- I assure you that barring any unexpected developments, I will be consistent in my message.
But seriously, in the next few minutes I would like to first review for you our major accomplishments at the recently concluded 2006 APEC Ministerial and Leaders meetings in Hanoi November 15-19 and look ahead at our prospects for 2007. I would also like to give you some of the high points of the President and Secretary's participation in the meetings in Hanoi, and convey a sense of the United States goals in, and vision for, APEC. And I want to leave time to take questions so I will endeavor to be succinct.
Before turning to the topic at hand, I'd like to recognize our friends at the Asia Society, Chevron, and the U.S.-APEC Business Coalition for their sponsorship of today's Washington Corporate Series luncheon as well as the National Center for APEC (NCAPEC). And thank you all for coming today.
Reflections on the Vietnam Year
Looking back, as we close out a highly successful APEC year hosted by Vietnam, I should take this opportunity to thank publicly those who made it possible.
With respect to APEC hosts, we are fortunate to be going from strength to strength - even as we are saying farewell to our friends in Vietnam who did a superb job in hosting APEC 2006, our new hosts in Australia are at this moment preparing to launch us on an ambitious agenda for APEC 2007.
In retrospect, the level of cooperation we experienced in working with the Vietnamese was exceptional at the recent Ministerial and Leaders meeting in Hanoi and, in fact, throughout the year. Logistics for all major meetings of 2006 in Vietnam worked like clockwork.
Secretary Rice and our counterparts at the National Security Council expressed pleasure with the President's historic visit to Vietnam. Ambassador Schwab, who also attended the meetings in Vietnam, was very pleased with the Hanoi outcomes as well. They also indicated that the President appreciated the quality and breadth of the dialogue he enjoyed with world leaders and businesspeople from around the region. This would never have been accomplished without the hard work and diligent planning on Vietnam's behalf.
And those of us in the public sector - Senior Officials, Ministers, and Leaders alike - owe a debt of gratitude to our partners from the private sector. Whether you participate in the APEC Business Advisory Council, or you take part in one of APEC's industry dialogues, whether you are involved in one of our many public-private partnerships, or simply view APEC as a way to explore potential new business for your company - let me tell you: your engagement in APEC is vital.
The President and the Secretary's Participation in the APEC Leaders Meeting in Hanoi
In Hanoi, President Bush and Secretary Rice stressed that APEC remains our pre-eminent channel for engagement in East Asia and the Pacific. In every meeting and public event, they explained to our partners in APEC that the U.S. vision for APEC transcends simple cooperation, and looks to the emergence of a true Asia-Pacific Economic Community, spanning the public sphere and private sector, NGOs, academia, and civil society.
And I don't need to tell those of you who attended the November 17 - 19 CEO Summit in Hanoi that Secretary Rice drew the largest crowd of the week - even larger than the audience that came to hear President Hu Jintao -- where she spoke eloquently of the United States' role as a Pacific power where we seek to ensure that our markets are open to Asia's entrepreneurs, and our borders are open to Asia's students and businesspeople.
As a testament of our strong and abiding commitment to APEC, President Bush has attended every annual APEC meeting since he took office in 2001. Given the competing demands on his time, his enthusiastic participation in APEC signals how crucial a forum it is for cooperating with our partners in the Asia Pacific on critical issues that demand a joint approach. In Hanoi, the President reaffirmed the United States commitment to engage in the Asia Pacific region and in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. He pledged (and I quote) that "In this new century America will remain engaged in Asia, because our interests depend on the expansion of freedom and opportunity in this region."
Nothing demonstrates this engagement better than our work with Vietnam this year, which also paid dividends for bilateral relations.
As but one example, under APEC's auspices this year U.S. business and government carried off a path-breaking public-private partnership project with Vietnam's public sector -- the Vietnam Customs e-Manifest Demonstration Project. Bringing together the United States Trade and Development Agency, Vietnam Customs, Unisys, FedEx and the National Center for APEC, the project joined disparate partners in a successful collaborative effort to install a state-of-the-art electronic customs clearance process at Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi airports. This is not only a timely project in light of Vietnam's entry into the World Trade Organization, but also one that imparts direct economic benefits to Vietnam and the United States.
The Australia Year Ahead
In 2007, with Australia as our host, we believe that we will have more such successes and that we are destined to have another truly outstanding APEC year. I am excited to tell you that our delegation departs in just a few weeks for the Australian capital of Canberra, where the first Senior Officials Meetings for 2007 will take place beginning January 15.
And because of Australia's compressed calendar to take into account Parliamentary elections, less than nine months after that first meeting, we will close out the year with the Leaders meeting in Sydney on September 8-9. As those of you who are old hands at APEC know, Australia's hosting of APEC is both a milestone and a homecoming.
When ministers from a dozen economies including the United States gathered for their first informal meeting in Canberra more than seventeen years ago in November, 1989 to ponder how to advance the process of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, few could have known that APEC would evolve to become the premiere economic forum for the region - today encompassing the membership of 21 APEC economies, spanning four continents, and representing 60% of global GDP and roughly 50% of world trade. Nor could those founding ministers have predicted that APEC would grow to include a Secretariat and a process of over 100 meetings each year involving literally thousands of participants from both the public and private sectors and other interested stakeholders.
Institutional Agenda -- Making APEC Stronger
With stakes this high, you can see why the United States is working hard to keep APEC strong and vital, while keeping APEC's agenda true to its original focus on trade and investment liberalization, regional cooperation, capacity building, and providing a forum to discuss world and regional developments. We are working hard to make sure that as an institution, APEC measures up to the aspirations and accomplishments of its member economies while advancing the causes of prosperity and security for the benefit of all.
During the Leaders meeting in Hanoi and in recognition of APEC's role as the premier economic forum in the Asia-Pacific, President Bush also announced that the United States would commit to doubling our support of APEC activities to roughly $5 million per year, starting in 2007.
The President and the other leaders also welcomed plans for the strengthening of the APEC Secretariat and the streamlining of APEC's operations. The U.S. has been working closely with partners to ensure that APEC remains a vital multilateral organization in which the U.S. can demonstrate leadership and pursue its interests in the region. To this end, Ministers and Leaders endorsed a strong package of reforms.
Hanoi Outcomes and Key Goals for 2007
Our four key goals in APEC are trade and investment liberalization, enhancing security, preparing for and preventing pandemic diseases, and improving the region's business environment. Taking these in order, we are working towards:
I. Sharpening APEC's Focus on Trade and Investment Liberalization
Trade and investment liberalization remains our first goal in APEC. In Hanoi, the U.S. gained agreement that APEC needs to be at the forefront of the regional economic integration trend and should be seriously considering a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) as a long term prospect. Importantly, the Leaders endorsed this valuable outcome. In the coming year, we will work with Australia and other APEC members to develop concrete initiatives to advance this commitment. While we have already done much thinking about the FTAAP, we look forward to hearing from you your views on how to take this important initiative forward.
On WTO Doha, Leaders also issued a strong stand-alone statement urging APEC members and others to renew efforts to complete the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) round of negotiations. One of the strongest passages in that pointed, one-page document was this: "We are ready to break the current deadlock: each of us is committed to moving beyond our current positions in key areas of the Round." Make no mistake about it, the DDA remains our number one trade priority.
APEC members also endorsed six sets of FTA model measures to act as important references to those of us who negotiate trade agreements in the region and to help ensure that they are of high-quality. The model measures agreed were: transparency, cooperation, technical barriers to trade, government procurement, market access, and dispute settlement. This effort is one way in which APEC has been responding to increasing regional economic integration -- which the proliferating FTAs and RTAs in the region are such a big part of. You will be seeing more model measures next year.
APEC demonstrated in Hanoi that it continues to place a high premium on protecting intellectual property rights (IPR) in the region, which is an enormously important sector for U.S. business. Ministers and Leaders welcomed the completion of two new IPR model guidelines under the 2005 APEC Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Initiative, for which my interagency colleagues at USTR and the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office deserve much credit: one on securing supply chains against counterfeit and pirated goods, and another on raising public awareness about the importance of protecting IPR.
Ministers and Leaders also agreed that government agencies should be setting a good example by prohibiting the use of illegal software and other content on government computer systems and via the Internet. This high level endorsement sends all the right signals to the citizenry of the APEC economies. Building on our successes this year, in 2007, IPR initiatives will also assume a prominent position on our APEC trade agenda.
In addition, Leaders adopted a set of APEC Technology Choice Principles as a new initiative to promote innovation and growth in the region, and to allow market forces to determine the availability, commercialization, and use of technologies -- rather than governments.
On the economic policy front, Australia has promised to make structural economic reforms a cross-cutting theme for its year, with initiatives such as an extensive study of behind-the-borders barriers to investment within selected APEC economies. APEC's Economic Committee released its inaugural 2006 Economic Policy Report outlining how structural reform is playing out across all APEC economies.
All told, we will have a busy trade agenda for APEC in the coming year: the DDA, the FTAAP, IPR, FTA model measures, and more - they will all go into the mix for our work in 2007.
II. Enhancing Human Security
Security is a second important area of our work in APEC. In 2006, we have put forward a number of important security initiatives designed to make trade and travel in the APEC region safer and more secure for all. In the area of human security initiatives, APEC Leaders condemned terrorist acts that have struck the region and reiterated their determination to "combat terrorism in every form and manifestation".
Leaders welcomed the two-year extension of the APEC Counter Terrorism Task Force and new counter-terrorism initiatives including a bioterrorism/food defense initiative to protect the region's food supply from the threat of deliberate contamination; and efforts to improve aviation security. Leaders also called for action to protect commercial and financial sectors against abuse by proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.
We made significant strides towards facilitating travel in the region with the unveiling of U.S. participation in the APEC Business Travel Card program and other security-related initiatives. APEC members and the business community warmly welcomed President Bush's announcement that the U.S. had joined the APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC) program, which provides for facilitated entry to the U.S. for cardholders.
Specifically, the President announced that the U.S. (as of November 19) recognizes the APEC Business Travel Card, which will allow card holders to receive expedited processing at U.S. international airports via crew lanes. Travelers, except those from Visa Waiver Program countries, will still require a valid visa. However, ABTC cardholders will be eligible for expedited appointment scheduling for visas at U.S. embassies and consulates. The Department of State has committed to incorporate the ABTC into existing post business referral programs to provide these expedited appointments for visas. Seventeen of APEC's other 20 members participate in the ABTC. We believe this is an important demonstration by the United States of our commitment to facilitating legitimate travel to our country.
Another important area of APEC's work is energy security. The relationship between economic growth, demand for and use of energy, and environmental consequences was raised by our Ministers' and Leaders' during the Hanoi Meetings. The U.S. has led efforts in this area, especially through the creation of the APEC Biofuels Task Force, which is investigating how biofuels can cost-effectively displace the use of oil for transport in APEC economies. The Biofuels Task Force is exploring biofuel economics and trade, the practicality of fuel-flexible vehicles and infrastructure for the marketplace, and biomass availability for biofuel conversion. We expect to work closely with Australia next year on energy issues in the lead up to their May Energy Ministerial.
III. Improving Preparedness for and Prevention of Pandemic Diseases
Emergency preparedness and prevention is our third goal for the year.
Ministers endorsed the APEC Action Plan on Prevention and Response to Avian and Influenza Pandemics. The plan calls on economies to implement individual and collective actions aimed at reducing the threat of, preparing for, and mitigating the effects of an influenza pandemic, elaborating upon the 2005 Leaders' initiative on Avian Influenza. The U.S. has led initiatives to build capacity to respond to the threat of avian influenza at its source and to improve economies' capacities to test and evaluate national preparedness plans through exercises. We also are working on an APEC Pandemic Preparedness Checklist for Small Businesses that will be presented to the SME Ministers in March in Hobart, Tasmania.
In this regard, we are excited about an Australian initiative to prepare member economies to maintain economic activity and trade during a pandemic. This, of course, will require close collaboration with the private sector and we look forward to strengthening this new direction for health security by coordinating with the APEC Business Advisory Council on its initiatives to prepare businesses to respond to the threat of epidemic diseases.
Leaders also called for cooperation on combating the spread of HIV/AIDS.
IV. Improving the Region's Business Environment
Our fourth goal in APEC this year is the improvement of the region's overall business environment through initiatives in areas such as anti-corruption and good corporate governance. At the Leaders and Ministers level, APEC members reaffirmed their strong commitment to fight corruption in the region by agreeing to prosecute acts of corruption by high-level officials. Ministers agreed to encourage economies to develop domestic actions to deny safe haven to corrupt officials and prevent them and those who bribe public officials from accessing the fruits of their kleptocratic activities in the financial systems.
The United States Vision for APEC in 2007
Turning to our shorthand vision for APEC in 2007, a key message that I hope to deliver here today is that APEC has no better friend, and no more committed partner, than the United States. We are committed to a strong and vital APEC that presumes a robust level of U.S. engagement.
The U.S. vision for APEC consists of four key themes:
1) Creating Opportunities for Sustainable Growth, which involves:
--Trade liberalization and facilitation
--Investment liberalization and facilitation
--Improving business environments
2) Preventing Threats to Sustainable Growth, including:
--Secure travel, transport and trade
--Health and prevention of pandemic disease
--Integrity of financial systems
3) Building Societies for Sustainable Growth, through:
--Stemming corruption and improving corporate governance
--Human resources development and education
--Development of civil society and finally
4) Strengthening APEC as an Organization
-- agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda that will include new resources, a streamlined organization, and a sharpened and more ambitious agenda
Conclusion
Let me conclude by noting that APEC is the only multilateral forum in the region in which the United States participates at the head of state level. We initiated the annual gathering of APEC Leaders in 1993 and we are committed to continually strengthening APEC to ensure it retains its leading role in the region.
But policy is not the exclusive realm of governments, and often, government's best role may be to act as a catalyst or facilitator by working together with the private sector and civil society. We therefore will continue to work vigorously with our friends and partners within the United States and in APEC to advance the prosperity and security of the region and improve business's bottom line. We can't do it without you - we need the active input of the private sector and public sector from all of our member economies.
Our vision for the Asia-Pacific region is inclusive, and we aim to ensure that it bridges the four continents of Asia, Australia, and the Americas -- including our partners in this hemisphere Canada, Mexico, Chile, and last but not least Peru, the host of APEC in 2008.
There is a Vietnamese proverb which says "Venture all; See What Fate Brings." Let us carry that sentiment along with us into 2007 to further the good work we will be doing in APEC. Thank you for your interest and thank you for helping make the United States vision for APEC a reality.
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