Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

What’s in the news?

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping is meeting in San Francisco in the United States for the Leaders’ Week which began on November 11.
US President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping will have their first in-person meeting in a year on the sidelines of the APEC summit.
India is not a member; however, India’s Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, is attending the forum.

What is APEC and when was it founded?

APEC is a regional economic forum that was established in 1989.
Its stated aim was to “leverage the growing interdependence of the Asia-Pacific and create greater prosperity for the people of the region through regional economic integration”.
Notably, many East Asian countries had recorded increasing growth rates in the ’80s and the decade preceding the formation of the forum.
The 21 members of APEC are termed “economies” (rather than countries or member states) because trade and economic issues are the focus of the grouping.
In a reflection of the idea, Taiwan and Hong Kong attend APEC meetings as distinct entities, even though China says they are parts of China and not independent entities.
The APEC economies are Australia, Brunei, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong (as part of China), the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Chile – as located geographically around the Pacific Ocean.

What role has it played over the years?

The grouping has always championed free trade, the lowering of trade tariffs, and economic liberalisation.
The dynamic growth attributable to APEC initiatives contributed significantly to the development of a growing middle class in the developing Asia-Pacific region.
APEC economies’ 2.9 billion citizens make up roughly 60 percent of global GDP. As of 2018, they represented 48 percent of global trade.
India has expressed interest in joining APEC, and made a formal request in 1991 – the year in which the Union government ushered in economic reforms for liberalisation and globalisation.
In 2016, then Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman told Parliament that the request to join was based on India’s geographical location, the potential size of the economy, and degree of trade interaction with the Asia-Pacific.
The response noted that APEC has had an informal moratorium on expanding membership for many years now.

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