THE AUCKLAND CHALLENGE
APEC ECONOMIC LEADERS¡¯ DECLARATION
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND
13 SEPTEMBER, 1999
We, the Economic Leaders of APEC, celebrate here in Auckland ten
years of unprecedented cooperation in our region, in pursuit of
a vision of stability, security and prosperity for our peoples.
We shall continue to exercise leadership to reach our goals and
to meet the challenge we have set ourselves.
We welcome the improved performance and prospects of our economies
since we last met, and commend the actions taken to reform those
economies affected by the crisis. The cooperative growth strategy
we adopted in Kuala Lumpur, and sound macroeconomic policies in
key economies, have supported the restoration of confidence and
growth, and have allowed us to share growing confidence about our
prospects.
We are not complacent about the risks that might impede recovery
and sustainable growth and we will sustain the momentum for reform.
Continued multilateral and bilateral support is still important.
We welcome and endorse the efforts of Ministers through the year
in pursuit of APEC¡¯s goals. As Leaders, we accept responsibility
for resisting protectionism, opening markets further, and addressing
structural and regulatory weaknesses that contributed to the economic
downturn from 1997. We will achieve this by strengthening our markets
through regulatory reform and enhanced competition and by improving
the international framework governing trade and investment flows.
To this end we commit to the launch of a new Round of negotiations
in the World Trade Organisation.
All people in our communities have a stake in the success of APEC.
We want to ensure they achieve their full potential for improved
economic and social well being. We particularly welcome the more
active participation of women and business in APEC¡¯s work this year.
Supporting Growth through Strong and Open Markets
Improved competitiveness through ongoing reform is the road to
recovery and sustainable growth. Through APEC, we seek to expand
opportunities for business and employment growth, build strong and
open markets and ensure that our communities and economies can participate
successfully in the international economy. Open, transparent and
well-governed markets, both domestic and international, are the
essential foundation of prosperity and enable enterprises to innovate
and create wealth.
We will strengthen our markets by:
- providing greater transparency and predictability in corporate
and public sector governance
- enhancing the role of competition to improve efficiency and
broaden participation by enterprises
- improving the quality of regulation and the capacity of regulators
to design and implement policies for sustainable growth
- reducing compliance costs and facilitating business growth
- building a favourable regional and international environment
for free and fair competition
In reconfirming our commitment to achieve the Bogor Goals of free
and open trade and investment by 2010/2020, we endorse the attached
APEC Principles to Enhance Competition and Regulatory Reform. These
principles provide a core part of the framework for strengthening
our markets which will better integrate individual and collective
actions by APEC economies to achieve those goals.
We accept Ministers¡¯ proposals for an initial work programme to
strengthen markets. This gives priority to strengthening market
infrastructure and human capacity in our economies and enterprises,
especially in developing economies. It also calls for specific implementation
strategies in areas such as natural gas and e-commerce. We call
upon the private sector, including the APEC Business Advisory Council
(ABAC) and the APEC Financiers¡¯ Group, to contribute to these efforts.
We welcome and endorse the work of our Finance Ministers, and encourage
their efforts to strengthen domestic financial markets and secure
the foundation for the return of capital to the region by:
- enhanced supervision of financial markets, including through
improved training of supervisors and regulators
- developing domestic bond markets based on the just published
Compendium of Sound Practices
- developing and applying agreed corporate governance principles
The alignment of the APEC Finance Ministers¡¯ process with the APEC
Leaders¡¯ process offers new opportunities for cooperation. We instruct
our Ministers to pursue greater links among APEC fora and their
work programmes. We look forward to receiving a report from Finance
Ministers of further progress in dealing with financial market issues
when we next meet.
We reaffirm that individual actions by economies are the principal
means by which APEC¡¯s goal will be attained. We acknowledge that
progress towards the Bogor Goals has been uneven, and undertake
to continue concrete actions to fulfil our commitment. We also accept
the views of ABAC and other business representatives who have called
for action plans to be more specific, transparent and comprehensive,
and welcome the initiative by Ministers to review and strengthen
processes for individual and collective actions under the Osaka
Action Agenda.
APEC¡¯s trade facilitation programmes are already delivering substantial
benefits - in customs harmonisation, standards and conformance,
and increased mobility of business people. We welcome the agreed
new initiatives, and instruct Ministers to give priority to this
work next year, in consultation with business, and to better communicate
the value of APEC¡¯s trade facilitation role.
Enhanced economic and technical cooperation is essential if we
are to lift our peoples into prosperity, and narrow the development
gap among Asia/Pacific economies. The financial crisis has underlined
the importance of cooperation in human and institutional capacity
building, science and technology exchanges and development of infrastructure.
We direct our Ministers to give special attention in the coming
year to improving effective and coordinated delivery of APEC¡¯s Ecotech
and capacity building programmes, in accordance with the Manila
Declaration.
We welcome Ministers¡¯ report on the APEC Food System proposed by
the APEC Business Advisory Council, and endorse its recommendations
on the development of rural infrastructure, dissemination of technological
advances in food production and processing, and promotion of trade
in food products. A robust regional food system that efficiently
links food production, food processing and consumption, is a vital
contribution to meeting the objectives of APEC. We instruct Ministers
to implement the recommendations, taking into account ABAC¡¯s submission
this year, and monitor annually progress towards achieving the APEC
Food System.
We recognise the key role that electronic commerce will play in
linking our economies. APEC must continue its efforts to create
a favourable environment for e-commerce in cooperation with the
private sector.
In a little over 100 days, APEC economies will face the challenges
and risks of the century date change. Intense activities in economies
and throughout the region have lessened risks but more cooperative
planning must occur. We recognise that global interdependence means
we must continue our efforts to prepare, accelerate cross-border
contingency planning, and enhance transparency about readiness as
a matter of the highest priority. We adopt the APEC Y2K 100 Days
Cooperation Initiative to intensify cooperation for responding to
potential Y2K events. We agree to share information and expertise
about Y2K impacts on critical infrastructures during and after the
date change.
APEC in the Global Economy
APEC will continue to play a leadership role in strengthening the
global economy, especially the multilateral trading system.
Strong financial systems are fundamental to achieving robust, open
and growing economies. We welcome the report from our Finance Ministers
on developments in strengthening the international finance architecture
and are encouraged by the progress made. The establishment of the
Financial Stability Forum and the new informal mechanism to enhance
dialogue among the systemically important economies should advance
cooperation on strengthening the international financial system.
We support ongoing efforts to improve crisis prevention and crisis
resolution, and urge prompt action to improve transparency of highly
leveraged institutions. We also support the developing consensus
on the need to ensure that reforms of the international financial
system, and domestic financial markets, are mutually reinforcing.
APEC¡¯s diverse membership provides a special contribution to discussions
on domestic and international financial reforms. In respect of both
the public and private sectors, APEC advocates:
- greater transparency and openness including improved reliability
and timeliness of information
- clearer accountability for decisions and judgements
This year, APEC has a unique opportunity to give impetus to deliberations
in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). We will give the strongest
possible support at Seattle to the launch of a new Round of multilateral
negotiations within the WTO, and endorse the positions adopted by
Ministers. We recognise the need to build public confidence in this
process and to improve coordination on trade related matters among
relevant international organisations. We agree on the importance
of ensuring full implementation of existing WTO agreements. We see
continued growth in international trade and investment as the best
means of achieving prosperity and security.
In particular, we agree that the new Round should:
- include comprehensive market access negotiations covering industrial
tariffs in addition to the already mandated negotiations on services
and agriculture
- lead to timely and effective improvements in market access to
the benefit of all participating economies, particularly developing
economies and,
- consistent with this objective, provide scope to review and
strengthen rules and disciplines
- have a balanced and sufficiently broad-based agenda and be concluded
within three years as a single package which does not preclude
the possibility of early results on a provisional basis
We support, as one of the important objectives of the negotiations
on agriculture, the abolition of agricultural export subsidies and
unjustifiable export prohibitions and restrictions.
We call on all WTO members to join us at Seattle in a commitment
not to impose new or more restrictive trade measures for the duration
of the negotiations, as applied during the Uruguay Round. We pledge
not to impose any such measures before the Seattle WTO Ministerial
meeting.
Support for ongoing WTO negotiations will remain a key area of
APEC¡¯s work throughout those negotiations. In particular we resolve
to work actively in the negotiations to ensure that APEC and WTO
are mutually reinforcing. To respond fully to the challenges and
opportunities of today¡¯s interdependent world for the benefit of
all our peoples and to avoid fragmentation of the international
trading system, we need to ensure convergence between regional and
multilateral liberalisation initiatives.
In order to achieve universality of membership, we also seek early
progress in the accession negotiations to the WTO, including for
those APEC economies that are not yet WTO members. We issue a strong
call for these accession negotiations to be concluded at the earliest
opportunity, if possible prior to commencement of the new WTO negotiations.
Participation in Prosperity
As Leaders, we recognise our responsibilities to ensure full and
successful participation by all of our populations in the modern
economy. Technological change has irreversibly integrated global
markets for goods and services, and finance. The effective development
and application of knowledge will be a key driver of future economic
success, and we pledge to ensure that APEC economies are to the
forefront of building and sharing their expertise in this vital
sector. Cooperation in such fields as e-education, science and technology
and life-long skills development should be strengthened. Globalisation
must become an opportunity for all.
We commit to ensuring that APEC takes a leading role in enabling
developing economies to participate successfully in the global economy,
through enhancing human and institutional capacities and progressively
opening markets. We recognise that income and wealth disparities
between and within economies can pose a challenge for social stability.
Appropriate social safety nets play a role in facilitating economic
and social adjustment. We welcome efforts by APEC economies, and
other institutions, to address social safety net issues, and encourage
further efforts to maintain employment and environmentally sustainable
growth. In that regard, we welcome the outcomes of the Human Resources
Development and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Meetings.
APEC economies will pursue enhanced dialogue and continue to seek
policy approaches that encourage inclusion and economic advancement,
as well as initiative and innovation.
We welcome the Framework for the Integration of Women in APEC,
which is a significant step to enhance the ability of women to contribute
to and benefit from prosperity of the region. We shall review implementation
of the Framework when we next meet.
In 1999, we have enhanced opportunities for business, especially
smaller enterprises, to make their views known in APEC. Those views
are of keen interest to us. Further dialogue with the private sector,
at all levels, is essential to maintain the dynamism and relevance
of APEC. We also look to the private sector for support for reform.
Once again, we welcome the recommendations from the APEC Business
Advisory Council, ABAC, and thank members of the Council for their
contribution in areas such as capacity building, finance, food,
e-commerce and air services. We instruct Ministers to take the ABAC
recommendations into account during their work in 2000. We support
implementation of the eight steps for more competitive air services,
and the identification of further steps to liberalise air services
in accordance with the Bogor Goals. Tourism and air services have
a large contribution to make to development and community building
in the region.
Conclusion
As Leaders, we recognise that our role in APEC, as in our own economies,
is to set the course which will allow for sustainable development
and which will deliver a strong social dividend to our populations.
We acknowledge that economic adjustments may be difficult, and that
there is social cost which must be reduced. But we are united in
our belief that the path to increased prosperity requires continual
reform and adjustment of our policies and outlook. An open regional
framework, within which competition and cooperation flourish, is
the best means of building a prosperous future together. We embark
on APEC¡¯s second decade confident that a deepening and enduring
spirit of openness, partnership and community is being built. The
challenge we collectively face is to maintain our momentum and deliver
on our commitment. We accept the challenge.
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