INTERVIEW-APEC looks to help companies survive in 2009
22 Jan 2009 05:33:21 GMT Source: Reuters
By Neil Chatterjee and Jerry Norton SINGAPORE, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Helping companies survive the economic crisis and making sure member countries resist the temptations of protectionism will be the top 2009 aims of the APEC grouping of 21 Asia-Pacific economies, its director said. It will be a return to the fundamental aims of promoting economic growth and free trade for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, APEC's new Executive Director Michael Tay told Reuters on Thursday. "APEC must stand for free trade and must not take backward steps that will send the wrong signal to the rest of the world," said Tay, a senior Singaporean diplomat who this month took over APEC's reins ahead of its 2009 summit in Singapore in November. In some more prosperous years APEC -- which includes such economic heavy-hitters as the United States, Japan, China and Russia -- has looked at broad long-term goals and wider subjects. "When Singapore was preparing for 2009 ... we had all these issues about climate change, environmental issues, everyone was looking at corporate social responsibility," Tay said in an interview at APEC's Singapore headquarters. "Now you might consider them issues of luxury," he said. "What is important now is how you prevent your companies from falling all over the place (and) not surviving this crisis." Pragmatic measures on that score will include getting trade and finance officials together to work on making credit flow to facilitate trade, easing transportation and logistical barriers, and expediting the process of setting up new businesses. Tay said APEC and policymakers were also having to deal with new questions such as whether governments taking major stakes or injecting billions in firms such as Bank of America <BAC.N>, General Motors <GM.N> and Royal Bank of Scotland <RBS.L> was a form of protectionism. "We are now moving into a grey zone," he said. "When governments take control of companies the issue of protectionism comes up -- do you protect those companies more because you own them? "When countries start introducing stimulus packages, does it come with unwritten rules that the prize should go to local companies only? Those are issues that have to be worked out." FEARS OF U.S PROTECTIONISM OVERBLOWN? But Tay was optimistic fears were overblown that the Democratic administration of U.S. President Barack Obama would prove more protectionist than its Republican predecessor. "Campaign rhetoric is campaign rhetoric," Tay said in reference to statements made ahead of the election, when Obama suggested a need to re-examine some U.S. trade agreements. Obama's cabinet and adviser selections showed an understanding of the global economy, Tay said. "I think Obama is one of those leaders that can see beyond narrow vested interests in the U.S." He noted Washington has recently expressed an interest in joining a free trade grouping of Singapore, Chile, Brunei and New Zealand, which he doubted would have happened without some consultation with the incoming Obama team. On the question of whether such groupings of a few countries hurt the World Trade Organisation's efforts at global free trade rules, as some argue, Tay said he felt they actually shored up and supported progress toward international trade liberalisation. "The WTO is not the be-all and end-all of free trade," he said, adding APEC's discussions on a Asia-Pacific free trade area were still exploratory. "I think the financial crisis has taught us -- there's no decoupling for sectors, no decoupling for economies," he said.(Editing by Dean Yates)
