Peruvian Ambassador Luis Quesada, who serves as 2016 Chair of the APEC Senior Officials, is interviewed by APEC.
APEC: Peru and other APEC economies are four years from their deadline to achieve the Bogor Goals of “free and open trade and investment” by 2020. What are your thoughts on APEC’s progress toward meeting these objectives?
Ambassador Luis Quesada (LQ): I think the progress has been immense, I wouldn’t say that it has been absolute, of course. It is very difficult to measure against the objectives described in the Bogor Goals targeting free trade and investment for this Asia-Pacific region. But if we look back to 1994 bearing the fact that the world of trade and investment has changed, APEC always been able to adjust to changes.
APEC: Describe APEC economies’ policy priorities for the region during Peru 2016 and how these priorities fit with its strategic goals heading into 2020?
LQ: There is a very strong link between the priorities and the Bogor Goals. The most important one is economic integration and the fact that we are very close to finalizing our analytical study on how to deal with this issue. This is one of the most important achievements this APEC year. We are also doing the roadmap on services and with trade and investment changing, services is certainly a new area of work. The internationalization of small and medium enterprises is also key to our prosperity. Of course, we should not forget that education is a new issue recently introduced in the agenda. Food security is also a key issue, especially that food tariffs have not gone down exactly in accordance with what we have done with other sectors in APEC. So we have a lot of work to do there.
APEC: How do you see the role of APEC evolving with the start of a new decade, taking into account the emergence of other multilateral bodies?
LQ: First of all, APEC has been the incubator of most free trade agreements and the general architecture of the region. I would say that the challenge for APEC is now the recent trends on anti-globalization around the world. Some politicians, unfortunately, participate in delivering this message to the public. I think this is worrisome, and I trust that APEC will be driving forward against these tendencies. In the end, open trade and investment have given APEC members tremendous benefits.
APEC: Peru is one of several emerging APEC economies chairing APEC. The Philippines in 2015, Viet Nam in 2017 and Papua New Guinea to follow. How do you see this line-up impacting the region’s policy agenda and potential outcomes?
LQ: What I can see since last year as the influence of the emerging economies is the introduction of social issues in the APEC agenda. It is not trade and investment by itself, but also how they are linked with the lives of people and alleviating poverty in the region. Now we have been discussing issues that are social and human, like education and labor. APEC is not an exception to that. These issues have definitely reached our agenda.
APEC: What will be the key indicators of success in APEC for Peru in 2016 and beyond?
LQ: I speak in the case of Peru, for instance. APEC has taught us - as an emerging economy participating alongside economies that are more developed in different fields. We learned and saw how things were done in the other parts of the world in terms of opening up markets, etc. APEC was a good example because we were doing it together with the other economies. So I am very optimistic - there will be challenges after 2020 and many things will change that we cannot even tell now. So I think we have to keep up and be alert to what’s going on and work together collectively as we have done in the past at APEC.
Information provided by the APEC Secretariat.
(END) NDP/MVB
Published: 11/14/2016