[asia-apec 1576] Brunei - APEC 2000 10/09/00

[APEC Monitoring Group]

Borneo Bulletin Online

Time To Restore Credibility


By Sabyasachi Mitra - Reuters

Brunei's Lead Chair Minister of Industry and Primary Resources Pehin Rahman
and Co-Chair NZ Minister of Finance Dr Michael Cullen with other delegates
at the meeting yesterday. Photo: Hj Md Said
Finance ministers from Pacific Rim nations began a two-day meeting on
Saturday to get the diverse regional grouping back on track even as soaring
global crude oil prices threatened to steal the limelight.

"One of the main issues on the agenda is to enhance the credibility and
effectiveness of the Apec finance ministers' process," a Southeast Asian
finance ministry official told Reuters.

"But many members have raised the issue of high oil prices though it was not
formally on the agenda," he said.

Apec finance deputies, who prepared the agenda for the ministerial meeting,
said it might formally urge the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) to raise crude output to combat high global oil prices.

Officials from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank attending
the meetings have expressed concern that oil prices -- currently at 10-year
highs -- could derail recovery in Asian economies.

The line up for Apec's seventh annual meeting of finance ministers being
held in the oil-rich kingdom of Brunei include Japanese Finance Minister
Kiichi Miyazawa and US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

"The Asian crisis in 1997 had destabilised the Apec process," New Zealand
Finance Minister Michael Cullen said, adding the ministers hoped to inject
dynamism and restore credibility to the elite regional grouping.

Apec, which accounts for 60 percent of global economic output and nearly 45
per cent of word trade, aims to achieve free trade and investment between
its members by 2010 for developed economies and 2020 for developing ones.

"I think that focus has somewhat taken a backseat," Prasenjit Basu, Credit
Suisse First Boston's chief economist for Southeast Asia, told Reuters by
telephone from Singapore.

Apec finance ministers are expected to reaffirm their political commitment
to economic reforms in a communique at the end of their meeting on Sunday.

"Apec is a forum where everybody has to commit to a certain level of reform
measures otherwise the future of Apec will be in doubt," a senior Brunei
finance ministry official told Reuters.

"The issue of globalisation and reform of the global financial system is a
part of this process," he said.

Investors say many Asian nations, basking in the glow of their stunning
economic rebound, are delaying tougher microeconomic reforms in banking and
corporate sectors.



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