LEADERS of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) agreed Monday to further intensify regional cooperation to promote growth and pave the way for recovery from the global financial crisis.

The Apec leaders, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, issued the proclamation in their final declaration at the end of the two-day 16th Apec Leaders Summit last November 23.

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Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez read the Spanish text of the declaration. This was followed by the turnover acceptance speech of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, which will host the 2009 Apec Leaders Summit.

The Apec leaders, garbed in the traditional Peruvian brown-colored “poncho,” then had their official group photo taken.

President Arroyo arrived last Monday in Bogota, Colombia for a two-day visit and bilateral talks with President Alvaro Uribe Velez.

She will then go to Los Angeles to meet with international businessmen and the Filipino community.

Arroyo was not able to do the Los Angeles leg before going to the Apec summit because her plane made an emergency landing in Osaka, Japan after First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo suffered from severe abdominal and back pains and vomiting.

The First Gentleman was flown back to Manila last Saturday and confined at the St. Luke's Medical Center. He was released from the hospital at Sunday noon.

Dr. Juliet Cervantes, Mr. Arroyo's head physician, said the President’s husband suffered from Acute Infectious Diarrhea and that it is not related to his dissecting aortic aneurysm, which led to a triple bypass operation on April 9, 2007.

In their declaration, the Apec leaders agreed to liberalize trade and promote investments, support and implement structural economic reforms, improve human security, and promote corporate social responsibility to ensure that member-economies benefit from globalization.

“The current global financial crisis is one of the most serious economic challenges we have ever faced. We will act quickly and decisively to address the impending global economic slowdown,” they said.

They vowed to oppose protectionism by strongly pushing for the conclusion of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round of Talks, and refraining from raising the current levels of applied import tariffs at least until the end of next year.

The leaders also endorsed the 2009 work plan for the Apec Regional Economic Integration (REI) agenda, emphasized the importance of strengthening financial markets in the region, and welcomed the capacity-building activities initiated by Apec finance ministers to reform capital markets.

They also affirmed their commitment to strengthen the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the region and welcomed the progress being made by the economies to implement Apec’s anti-counterfeiting and piracy initiatives and efforts to improve the patent systems.

They likewise vowed to improve food security in the region and agreed to cooperate on disaster preparedness and management, and confront the challenges of climate change.

During the summit, the Philippines backed the G20 declaration in Washington last week to reform and strengthen international financing institutions which provide overseas development assistance (ODA) grants and other financial liquidity infusions to developing countries.

Arroyo, in a bilateral meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice over the weekend in Peru, appealed to Washington to give the Philippines another shot at the five-year large-scale compact program under the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) which has been giving an average of $344 million to compact-eligible countries.

She also asked Washington not to reduce the funding for compact-eligible countries after the US Senate committee on appropriations slashed the development funds.

An earlier report by the World Bank put a damper on the Philippines' efforts to secure more funding from the MCA after the September study ranked the Philippines as among the worst places to do business in the world.

Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said Arroyo and Rice also discussed the human rights problem in Myanmar. He said Rice thanked the President for being a strong voice in Asean in pushing for democratic reforms in Myanmar.

Dureza said Arroyo also told Rice that the Philippine government is prepared to go back to the negotiating table with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as soon as positive results are gathered from the consultations with stakeholders and affected communities in Mindanao.

He said the President expressed gratitude to the US for its continuing in the Mindanao peace process. He is confident the ongoing consultations with the stakeholders might be completed soon.

“There might be a new announcement very soon about the resumption of peace talks with the MILF,” he added. (JMR/Sunnex)

For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Baguio.

(November 25, 2008 issue)
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