President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urged Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) members to influence the World Trade Organization (WTO) to come up with early results that would benefit the most number of people, especially in the developing countries.
As ASEAN Secretary General Rodolfo Severino earlier said, the pattern of behavior of stronger WTO members runs counter to the agreed norms of international trade. These include the unjustified raising of tariff walls, destructive agricultural subsidies, and the abuse of anti-dumping measures
"APEC is a voluntary organization in the sense our commitments are voluntary and not treaties that are legally binding. But APEC is very influential in the WTO," the President said during Saturday's plenary breakfast at the APEC CEO summit at the Melia Los Cabos here.
The President was one of the three APEC women leaders who addressed the breakfast CEO summit. The two other leaders were Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
During the summit held Saturday President Macapagal-Arroyo outlined four ways to achieve the early results. These, the President said include:
-the opening up of markets for tropical agricultural products and other products
of interest to developing countries such as tuna and textiles;
-the elimination of harmful agricultural export subsidies;
-the liberalization of services where developing countries can benefit including
labor mobility in sectors such as information technology, health care and
education; and
-the enhancing of the capacity of members to negotiate effectively, implement
commitments, and improve the competitiveness of their products.
However, she said APEC is not expected to finance these capability building but "we do expect APEC to use its influence to turn other sources of funds," citing the "hand up" rather than "hand-out" approach to the capacity building.
"This approach is not charity but investment in people. It teach people to fish rather than to receive fish," she added.
The President also told the CEO summit the need to pay special attention to growth of SMEs and micro enterprises approach citing that such is being successfully implemented in the Philippines through the "One Town, One Product" program.
On terrorism, President Macapagal-Arroyo said the Philippines is set to crush it militarily and economically.
But she said the attack on Bali, Indonesia and other attacks this month showed that war on terrorism is going to be long, difficult and borderless.
The President added security impedes development and, conversely, poverty feeds terrorists with recruits.