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The Executive Director of APEC, Dr Alan Bollard, is a distinguished speaker at the Asian Financial
Forum 2014 here in Hong Kong. And Hong Kong is also the venue for the APEC Finance Ministers'
Meeting a little bit later. And Dr Bollard joins us from Singapore - thanks indeed:
Now looking at the ministers' meeting there was in Indonesia much earlier this year, could
you tell me really what you would see as being what came out from the meeting in terms of
promoting both free trade as well as open economy?
Yes, we had a good summit of leaders meeting in Bali in October, and they were reviewing
how APEC has been doing in terms of helping progress trade and investment liberalisation
through the whole region over the year and setting some directions for the future. It's
really a matter of getting all this moving in the same direction. It's a bit like a
flotilla of different ships all sailing in one direction. There's 40 or so initiatives
going on at the minute and they're all aimed at helping promote trade and investment right
across all these countries and also basically getting better economic outcomes for people
in the region.
So looking at the data arising, is multilateralism really very much alive?
Oh Absolutely. We have 21 completely different economies, completely different economies,
coming together in APEC or from around the Pacific Rim and they are all agreeing with
a whole range of different initiatives. These are done on a voluntary basis. It's a little
bit different from WTO. It's been easier to sign up with, it's been easier to experiment
and try things out. It's quite a long game that we're playing in all of this but it's
been an important part of that very big growth in trade around the region over the last few
decades which in turn has been a very big part of the big growth improvements that we
have seen.
Now there has been a multiplicity of agreements of different forums here in Asia Pacific,
including the Trans-Pacific Partnership arrangement (TPP), but are these a help or a hinder where
it comes to free trade?
Well we hope that it helps it. We'll get a better picture of that during the coming
year when we get more information on TPP. But it's just not TPP. The ASEAN economic
community that's been developing and now going into broader negotiation with the regional
comprehensive economic partnership. We've got G20 with various initiatives, the WTO
and of course in the Latin economies, the Pacific Alliance as well.
So how would you say that APEC is really evolving right now? What will be the thrust of the
meeting here in Hong Kong of the finance ministers of APEC?
Hong Kong yes will be a host for the finance ministers meeting for APEC during 2014. And
that's where we would expect to see continued work going on, on deepening and broadening
the financial sectors through the Asia Pacific region and working out how they can contribute
better to getting better growth through the region.
You mention finance and also supply chains, so will a lot of the thrust of the meeting
really depend on trade finance?
Yes, I'm sure that will come up. However, as well there's the general fact that in
the region economies are changing. Ever since the global financial crisis, we've seen
quite a soggy recovery, uh and changes in the balance of economies throughout the region.
We're seeing still the ongoing challenge of tapering of quantitative easing and the
challenge that some of the smaller open economies have of dealing with some of the spillover
effects of the capital flows, the impacts on asset prices, the impacts on exchange rates.
And then less-developed economies we're seeing less trade driven growth and more domestic-demand
driven growth. And indeed we're seeing the growth of middle income groups and economies
as well. And that all says it's a different world that we're operating in and we all
need to understand how that might impact things and how APEC will fit in that sort of environment.
And what is the future of what in the past has been trade driven growth in this region.
You are going to be at the Asian Financial Forum 2014. What's your message to the forum?
The message that - how advanced this region has been but it's only happened that way
through economic interdependence. No one economy goes ahead on its own. In the past we've
seen developed economies like the US having their consumers driving growth. I think that's
going to change a bit. We're seeing a bit of rebalancing in competitiveness between
developing and developed economies in the region. And we're seeing different drivers
of growth, and that's what we'd like to hear more about.
What are these specific drivers of growth that you mentioned about?
Well the potential that some of the larger developing economies have got for their - to
get domestic demand and what sort of challenges that puts up for policy makers in those economies.
What that means for different trade patterns across the Pacific. The potential for the
United States and other developed economies to regain some competitiveness. The changes
in some of the commodity prices and energy prices that we're seeing through the region
and how that changes things as well. And there'll be other stuff too.
Dr Bollard, thanks very much for joining us from Singapore and look forward to seeing
you at the Asian Financial Forum.