Asia-Pacific to play greater role in leading the world: PECC chief

The Asia-Pacific region will play a greater role in leading the world, said Charles Morrison, co-chair of Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) in an exclusive interview with Xinhua during the APEC Leaders' Week meetings .

"We are in an uncertain period of world history. And Asia and the Asia-Pacific region will be leading the world more," said Morrison, expressing hope that Asia-Pacific economies will "have solidarity and show leadership not just for our own region but for the world as a whole."

"I hope the summit will demonstrate the solidarity of economies in the Asia-Pacific region, their willingness to work with each other to get along with developing positive solutions to problems, and they take policies that the Asia-Pacofic region need, " he added.

On the future direction of APEC members' economic growth, Morrison said that on the one hand, APEC member economies need to give more heed to balanced and inclusive growth; on the other, they should make more efforts to be more efficient in their use of energy and put less carbon and green house gases into the atmosphere so as to achieve sustainable growth.

In 1994, the Economic Leaders' Meeting in Bogor, Indonesia, adopted the Bogor Declaration which included the Bogor Goals. The goals pledged APEC's intent to achieve free and open trade and investment by 2010 for industrialized economies, and 2020 for developing economies.

During the ongoing APEC Leaders' Week meeting, there will be an assessment of how far the member economies have gone in achieving the Bogor Goals. Morrison said that they have made substantial progress in achieving the goals, but "we got a long way and we still have work. "

"Of course, the countries that need come to that goal in 2020, they also have a lot of work to do," he said.

The PECC chief noted the region's economies vary in their paces to achieve economic recovery, showing a trend to polarization.

Economies like China, Vietnam and Singapore have maintained strong growth, while some others are not doing so well, he said. The imbalance is likely to give rise to protectionism.

"We have not seen a great rise in protectionism, but we have seen a rise in protectionist pressures," he said, adding that it is important for APEC member economies to make their respective efforts to curb protectionist actions.
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