TRADE-LATIN AMERICA: Aiming for Bigger Presence in APEC (1) An Inter Press Service Feature

JAKARTA, Nov 17 (IPS) - The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) has put a two-year moratorium on new entrants for two years, but Latin America is poised to have a larger presence in the Pacific Rim grouping.

Chile recently became the second Latin American nation after Mexico to become a full-fledged member of the five-year-old forum.

But while new applicants will not be entertained by APEC just yet, the grouping's South-east Asian members have spoken up for Peru's participation in some of its working group activities, specifically fisheries cooperation. Ecuador has also expressed interest in APEC, diplomats said, together with Colombia.

Peru has been actively lobbying APEC members and sent a special envoy to Jakarta before the APEC meetings began here last week to explain its case to forum chair Indonesia.

Political analysts say the Latin American interest is timely as officials look to how to make the forum a truly Asia-Pacific group.

Aside from Chile and Mexico, APEC groups together the United States, Canada, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea.

APEC's 18 leaders on Tuesday agreed to achieve free trade and investments in the region by the year 2010 for industrialised nations, and by 2020 for developing economies.

During the three day ministerial meetings last week, much time was consumed on discussions over how Asia-Pacific countries could participate in some of APEC's activities without being members. Peru, for instance, is not yet seeking membership but first wants to participate in the fisheries working group.

Malaysia and the Philippines are among the more avid supporters of Peru. Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been actively generating business interest in Latin and South America.

In pressing Peru's case, Philippine Foreign Secretary Roberto Romulo said, "How can talk about the issue of fisheries without talking about Peru?"

Indeed, Peru is one of the world's top fishing nations, behind only Japan, the ex-Soviet Union and China. Three decades of mainly private investment in industrial processing plants have also made the country first in the world fishmeal exporters' league.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service