2011: Notice that as early as 1995, Europe's northernmost powers were already eyeing the world's arctic jewels with much lust.
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Last week, APEC heads of state met for three days in Vietnam, an annual summit more honored for ceremonial significance than for real accomplishments. As business editor of The Evening Paper in 1996, when the APEC summit was held in Subic, I experienced firsthand the modus vivendi resorted to by participating governments and saw up close the compromises struck long before the summits are held.
I doubt that the accommodations have stopped, and I do not believe the tradeoffs ever get called in. Every year, the big problems remain and only the small items get discussed, checked, or shelved.
If we revisit an APEC scenario in 1995, as mapped out in my column below, we will realize that only one emerging growth area has really taken off with amazing speed--the Middle East. And even then, that takeoff is limited to specific countries. There's another tradeoff, I suspect.
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Editorial Page column, The Evening Paper
Issue of 14 November 1995
Even as the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum meets in Osaka this month to push its free-trade agenda, other regions and subregions in various parts of the world are looking into their development needs and actively pursuing them with the urgency of those who feel there may no longer be a tomorrow for their people.
In the Philippines alone, two growth regions well outside the metro areas have surfaced. A southern triangle covering Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, called the East Asean Growth Area (EAGA), has the advantage over a still loosely conceptualized northern subregion. At meetings among government and private-sector representatives, EAGA is steadily being pushed through joint-venture agreements among local businessmen. Since the formal organization of the regional group 18 months ago, agreements have reached an impressive total of 53.
Asean countries, however, do not have a monopoly on subregional initiatives. The newest, and perhaps most attractive to international investors, may be the proposed six-country Mekong River development plan. Covering one of the most fertile areas in Asia and running from China's Yunnan province to the south of Vietnam, the Mekong River plan involves opening the virgin area to global trading, with realistic exchange rates, low inflation, and budgetary discipline. The objective is, of course, to bring in the foreign capital the subregion needs.
Joining forces in the project are the governments of Thailand, China, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, and Vietnam. Representatives of Burma, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia zeroed in on their transport, telecommunications, and power needs in the Mekong area, seeking investments from both private and public sectors in Asia for their development. Burma's Economic Planning Minister David Abel defined the subregion's most urgent need at present as one of developing the "existing infrastructure facilities" of the six countries.
At an Asian Development Bank-sponsored conference of subregional representatives and potential investors held in Manila, ADB officials admitted that many of the projects may not seem financially attractive, despite potentially high economic rates of return, since most of the countries involved in the subregional grouping are only now starting to open up their economies. Environmental policies of the six governments involved will need to be improved, according to ADB Vice Chairman Bong Suh Lee. The Bank, though, has committed itself to developing and taking part in a range of financing mechanisms that could help channel funds to the Mekong development project.
******
Compared to the Mekong River Area, the Middle East and North Africa hardly appear undeveloped. Yet, seven countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf are proposing vast economic projects, requiring at least $40 billion, to redirect the region from war to development. Some of these countries, oddly enough, are also considered some of the region's richest occupants.
Leading the Middle East bandwagon is Israel, which presented a $25-billion package at a three-day summit early this month. The summit is actually already a follow-up to a more political gathering held last year in Casablanca, where Arabs and Israelis mingled for the first time before the political crisis caused by the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The Palestinians have proposed $6 billion worth of projects that include a steel rod factory and a $1.5-billion system that will bring water from the West Bank to replace the increasingly saline water supply of the Gaza Strip.
Other projects in the priority list of the seven countries--Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, and Qatar--include grand development schemes such as a canal to carry Red Sea water to replenish the Dead Sea, natural gas from Qatar for Israel, and a Palestinian plan to turn the violence-plagued Gaza into the Riviera of the eastern Mediterranean.
However, the governments that did not send representatives to the summit in Amman, Jordan, were as notable as those who did. Syria and Lebanon boycotted because of the lack of progress in their negotiations with Israel. Hardliners Libya, Iraq, and Iran were not present for obvious reasons.
Perhaps the most optimistic comments during the summit came from the United States delegation. "This is a step-by-step process. It is not to happen overnight. (But) it is something that could not have happened a few short years ago," said US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
In fact, the ghost of the region's political reality was perhaps the summit's most pervasive presence. With Israel still to sign peace agreements with all its Arab foes, sales pitches may be plentiful and the region may be attractive, but investors are definitely wary.
One US banker openly commented that he heard nothing during the summit that would differentiate the Middle East from Southeast Asia as a market. IMF statistics show that among the world's emerging markets, the Middle East attracts only one-third of one percent of world foreign investment.
The reasons given by the 1,000 or so businessmen and future investors who attended the summit comprise an emerging market's virtual instruction manual: provide adequate economic data and information on companies; break down the resistance among local businessmen to change and Western market standards; build a strong, independent stock-exchange regulatory body to protect the interests of investors; privatize state enterprises and open up family-owned businesses; and cure Arab-Arab rivalry, especially over the issue of a Middle East development bank, that transcends Arab-Israeli enmity.
The summit's final communiqué struck a cautious note: "The summit recognized that the circle of peace needs to be widened."
This can only mean that the Middle East as a development and investment region still has a long way to travel before fruition.
Leading the Middle East bandwagon is Israel, which presented a $25-billion package at a three-day summit early this month. The summit is actually already a follow-up to a more political gathering held last year in Casablanca, where Arabs and Israelis mingled for the first time before the political crisis caused by the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The Palestinians have proposed $6 billion worth of projects that include a steel rod factory and a $1.5-billion system that will bring water from the West Bank to replace the increasingly saline water supply of the Gaza Strip.
Other projects in the priority list of the seven countries--Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, and Qatar--include grand development schemes such as a canal to carry Red Sea water to replenish the Dead Sea, natural gas from Qatar for Israel, and a Palestinian plan to turn the violence-plagued Gaza into the Riviera of the eastern Mediterranean.
However, the governments that did not send representatives to the summit in Amman, Jordan, were as notable as those who did. Syria and Lebanon boycotted because of the lack of progress in their negotiations with Israel. Hardliners Libya, Iraq, and Iran were not present for obvious reasons.
Perhaps the most optimistic comments during the summit came from the United States delegation. "This is a step-by-step process. It is not to happen overnight. (But) it is something that could not have happened a few short years ago," said US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
In fact, the ghost of the region's political reality was perhaps the summit's most pervasive presence. With Israel still to sign peace agreements with all its Arab foes, sales pitches may be plentiful and the region may be attractive, but investors are definitely wary.
One US banker openly commented that he heard nothing during the summit that would differentiate the Middle East from Southeast Asia as a market. IMF statistics show that among the world's emerging markets, the Middle East attracts only one-third of one percent of world foreign investment.
The reasons given by the 1,000 or so businessmen and future investors who attended the summit comprise an emerging market's virtual instruction manual: provide adequate economic data and information on companies; break down the resistance among local businessmen to change and Western market standards; build a strong, independent stock-exchange regulatory body to protect the interests of investors; privatize state enterprises and open up family-owned businesses; and cure Arab-Arab rivalry, especially over the issue of a Middle East development bank, that transcends Arab-Israeli enmity.
The summit's final communiqué struck a cautious note: "The summit recognized that the circle of peace needs to be widened."
This can only mean that the Middle East as a development and investment region still has a long way to travel before fruition.
******
But then, come to think of it, an even longer route awaits what may now only be a gleam in the eye of Russian and Nordic leaders: arctic development.
Last month, foreign ministers from the two regions met to discuss the common effort to clean up the environment and develop the Barents Sea area in the European Arctic. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev promised his country would speed up the removal of nuclear wastes on the Kola peninsula bordering Norway in the Arctic and simultaneously start work to improve regional infrastructure.
When Russia was still part of the Soviet Union, its nuclear waste was stored on the Kola peninsula, home to the former communist superpower's submarine-based nuclear-missile arsenals. Only after the nuclear waste is cleaned up can the Barents region even dream of attracting massive development capital for the ambitious projects it has on its drawing boards: harbor improvement, ship building, energy, banking, and telecommunications.
-- NBT
Last month, foreign ministers from the two regions met to discuss the common effort to clean up the environment and develop the Barents Sea area in the European Arctic. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev promised his country would speed up the removal of nuclear wastes on the Kola peninsula bordering Norway in the Arctic and simultaneously start work to improve regional infrastructure.
When Russia was still part of the Soviet Union, its nuclear waste was stored on the Kola peninsula, home to the former communist superpower's submarine-based nuclear-missile arsenals. Only after the nuclear waste is cleaned up can the Barents region even dream of attracting massive development capital for the ambitious projects it has on its drawing boards: harbor improvement, ship building, energy, banking, and telecommunications.
-- NBT
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