Presentation to the Diplomatic Club & Foreign Correspondents Association

Paula let me first thank you for the invitation to address the Singapore Diplomatic Club.

I appreciate also that this is an occasion where friends in the Foreign Correspondents Association have joined with you.

Not always instinctively compatible, in my experience - bringing media and dips together is a good idea.

From Kuala Lumpur to Auckland - my title reflects one of the burdens that APEC has to deal with.

It gives an expectation of an international process generating solid results annually - in 10 months to be precise this time round. 10 months to produce results that 21 Leaders, including of major economies, feel will justify their attendance to give effect to.

10 months to meet the challenges and headline requirements of the international media.

Indeed 10 months to secure a consensus on significant issues of economic cooperation among 21 very disparate economies AND to achieve this through a voluntary consultative process: not in a rule bound organisation nor one dispensing financial support.

Ask how long it took or takes the GATT/WTO to progress the Uruguay Round or other trade liberalisation. Ask how speedily the IMF is proceeding.

APEC however works in a quite unique way - as a consultative process. And it has in fact produced some notable results in rather short order but much progress is incremental from year to year.

Overall you should see APEC as in an implementation phase: progressively - year by year - operationalising the aims set out by Leaders at Bogor in trade liberalisation, at Osaka which also covered Business Facilitation, and at Manila which fleshed out means to reduce disparities in economic development between member economies = ECOTECH.

APEC's work in business facilitation provides some good examples of the steady, incremental but low profile, results being produced.

A Blueprint for Customs Modernisation, a most ambitious and detailed programme to simplify and harmonise customs procedures: improving temporary import processing; decision appeal procedures; automated clearance; adoption of UN-Edifact electronic management and; express consignments clearance procedures.

Agreement to align domestic standards of electrical and electronic equipment with international standards by 2004/2008. This is a major growth sector of consumer demand.

Agreement to grant multiple entry visas to regular business travellers and raise service standards for those needing longer-term business residency permits.

Agreement on various principles of government procurement - transparency, value for money, open and effective competition and fair dealing together with lists of practices illustrating how these elements could be implemented.

That's a slight digression of more interest to a different audience. They mean more savings to business and consumers. But I wanted to highlight one unsung area of on going APEC achievement - one that our New Zealand friends will be continuing to stress in the agenda between Kuala Lumpur and Auckland.

Last week here in Singapore, only 3 weeks after Leaders met, New Zealand convened a meeting of APEC Senior Officials. The aim - to get moving again quickly both on new tasks and directions set in Kuala Lumpur by Leaders and Ministers, and also to keep up the momentum on ongoing work.

Everyone knows well the outcomes from Kuala Lumpur.

To follow up some key elements, the 1999 work programme includes:

Dealing with the social impacts of the economic crisis:I'll come back to that later.

Enhancing IAPs:Here we have a three-track strategy to enhance the Individual Action Plan (IAP) process by which economies implement market opening measures on an annual basis:

PECC will undertake an assessment of the progress achieved to date by member economies in their IAPs

Member economies will undertake a parallel self-review of their IAPs

Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Japan, Philippines and the US will submit their IAPs for voluntary peer review in 1999 in New Zealand

Progressing EVSL:Malaysia has already begun the first steps of a process of taking the tariff elements of the first nine sectors to the WTO

We agreed last week to progress the ecotech and facilitation proposals in the first nine product sectors and do further work on the remaining 6 sectors at meetings in Wellington in February.

Strengthening Ecotech:Senior Officials confirmed the priority to initiatives to respond to the financial crisis, including the Australian proposal on economic governance;

They agreed to give priority in 1999 to SMEs and developing stable and efficient capital markets

Many observers will look specially closely at APEC's follow-up in responding to the regional financial crisis between Kuala Lumpur and Auckland to assess how it is doing.

APEC and other international efforts in this area formed the core of Economic Leaders discussions in Kuala Lumpur.

Work is under way at various levels and in many APEC sub-groups to address the impacts. Economic Leaders launched more activities at their November meeting in Kuala Lumpur. And APEC has played a key role in catalyzing action in wider international fora more appropriate to the global nature of the issues.

APEC's focus is on capacity building to support needed structural changes in affected economies. This will strengthen markets and help prevent a recurrence of such crises.

Also on a cooperative growth strategy. This includes monetary and fiscal policies to support recovery, efforts to catalyze new official and private capital in-flows, and a re-commitment to APEC's goal of free trade and investment. Leaders had a very solid exchange of views in this area, led off by Thailand.

Turning to strengthening financial systems and capital markets a number of specific collaborative initiatives are underway under the APEC Finance Ministers process.

Training will be provided to bank supervisors and securities regulators in cooperation with the ADB.

A new initiative, led by Hong Kong, seeks to expand the region's underdeveloped domestic bond markets.

Officials are examining ways to strengthen corporate governance, whose shortcomings have been widely cited as a contributing to the regional turmoil. The Australian economic governance initiative for capacity building support will assist here.

APEC is urging its members to adopt internationally-recognized principles on banking supervision.

Then there are APEC programs: to promote asset-backed securitization, develop regional credit rating agencies, strengthen clearing and settlement systems, expand cooperation among export credit agencies, and promote private financing for infrastructure.

Initiatives to spark new capital flows discussed in K.L. include the US-Japan Asian Growth and Recovery program, which is focused on private sector revitalization, and Japan's $30 billion financial package. Malaysia has already shown the importance of this initiative.

APEC is continuing work on a Voluntary Action Plan for Freer and Stable Capital Flows, an exercise that aims to balance the benefits of capital account liberalization and the need for financial stability.

Leaders in K.L. also called for a task force to develop proposals in the areas of prudential regulation of financial institutions in industrialized economies, better risk assessment, transparency and disclosure standards for private financial institutions involved in international capital flows, and highly leveraged and offshore institutions.

APEC Leaders and Ministers are keenly aware that many of the financial issues facing us are wider than APEC alone and their resolution needs input from other key global players. Still, APEC played a big part in launching the Group of 22 process that has produced consensus recommendations for reforming the international system, and is working for regional implementation of those recommendations.

We're not in the business of duplication. We recognise the central role of the IMF and World Bank. APEC looks to be an "action-forcing process" where appropriate.

Leaders and Ministers have also focused on human impacts of the crisis: the needs to generate employment and to build and strengthen social safety nets to protect the poor and vulnerable.

APEC can claim much credit for the sharp increase in social sector lending commitments from the World Bank and ADB.

In addition, under an initiative led by Mexico and Chile, officials and private fund administrators are exchanging ideas on development and reform of pension systems.

Also, their meeting here in Singapore last week, APEC Senior Officials accepted a U.S. proposal for an ad hoc Task Force on the Social Framework for Growth, which aims to effect matchmaking between needs and providers of social sector assistance.

On the analytical side, APEC's 1999 Economic Outlook, one of our flagship publications, to be prepared by Chile, will focus on the social impacts of the financial crisis.

Finally, as another example of the work in this area, the Human Resource Development Working Group is designing new projects addressing the human resource impact of the financial crisis.

To sum up, work on most of these and other initiatives will continue through New Zealand's year. Key junctures where progress will need to be assessed will be at the Finance Ministers meeting in May in Penang and, of course, the September meetings in Auckland.

This clear evidence of progress in hand to address the financial crisis is very much in line with one of New Zealand's strategic priority objectives for the 10 month year ahead - producing a credible response to the economic downturn.

It's not New Zealand's only aim; further trade liberalisation is obviously one.

I've brought along copies a paper tabled by New Zealand Ministers at Kuala Lumpur which gives a full account of them. Also a press release on last week's Preparatory Senior Officials Meeting which highlights the early, positive start made to the year's work.

Transparency: providing these papers reminds me. Unlike many international organisation, we keep very little about APEC restricted or in confidential documents.

Well, that is almost all I thought could be of interest to you to speak about today. APEC extends so widely in its activities devoted to promoting economic cooperation one has to be selective. The one thought I want to leave with you is that APEC is a dynamic action-focussed process, producing short and long-term benefits towards building an Asia-Pacific Community.

But before I conclude - some brief background on the Secretariat.

<A power point presentation on the role and functions of the APEC Secretariat was given>