The CONFIED (APEC-Peruvian Business Council)

Excellencies Alfredo

I want to thank Mr. Roque Benavides, Chairman of CONFIED for giving me this opportunity to address members of Confied on APEC and role of business.

I like to begin by saying that APEC is different from other regional and international organizations in that it has strong business participation. APEC Leaders created APEC Business Advisory Council or ABAC in 1996 in Osaka. Its primary role is to advice leaders and ministers and to consult senior officials on APEC economic policy issues that would assist APEC in realizing its Bogor's goal - free trade and investment in the region by 2010 for developed economies and 2020 for developing economies. Each economy is represented by three prominent business members. Last year at the Small and Medium Enterprise Ministerial Meeting, a proposal was made for one of the three members should represent Small and Medium Enterprise.

Last year in Auckland, leaders wanted senior officials to look into how business participation can be enhanced at all levels of APEC process. At their Meeting in Brunei Darussalam concluded just a while ago, Senior official chair agreed to look into this and ways to improve business can participate more meaningfully.

Small and Medium Enterprise is one of the four priorities on Brunei Darussalam, host of this year's APEC Leaders/Ministerial Meeting. As to other APEC economies, Peru attaches importance to Small and Medium Enterprise. This year's emphasis for Small and Medium Enterprise Ministerial Meeting is three folds:

Turning to ABAC, this year it is focusing on five areas:

It is expected that its final report to the Leaders, like previous year, will be cutting edge and thought provoking.

I would now like to turn to APEC Past Achievements. From beginning of APEC, facilitating trade has been key goal. In 1989, Ministers called for review differences in custom practices. In 1991, Ministers mandated Senior Officials to focus on reduction of impediments to flow of goods, services and investment. The mandate was captured in Seoul Declaration. The Eminent Person Group in 1993 called to make trade facilitation as core of APEC works and Leaders endorsed the recommendations aimed at improving access to tariff data, reducing administrative barriers, streamlining customs procedures, harmonizing approaches to standards and conformance, and encouraging flow of investment

The success stories of APEC include works on Paperless Trading to be completed by 2005/2010. Members would adopt WTO Customs Valuation Code by 2000. Good progress in works in the area of Mutual Recognition Arrangements aimed to reduce costs to business caused by double-testing products include:

Those are some of the tangible outcomes of APEC process so far.

This year APEC intends to deliver/implement more. Among expected APEC 2000 Deliverables are:

APEC also encourages business participation at various levels. At Working Group Level, business involvement are in:

This concludes an overview of business participation in APEC. You may notice by now that business inputs are very important to APEC. This will help APEC remains relevant and in focus.

Thank you.