January, 2002

APEC: Terrorism Takes Over Economics on the Agenda

Amr Gohar

The 21-nation Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum held its last summit in Shanghai, China, from 17 to 21 October 2001. The summit was called to unite the stance of APEC members after the terrorist attacks of 11 September. For the free-trade-promoting group, the last summit declaration was a plain counter-terrorism statement.

Terrorism and the war against it were the feature topics of discussion. In the first gathering of the world leaders since the fateful attack on the United States, all the members pledged to continue their support for the war against terrorism. The APEC declaration ignored the calls made by the two Muslim members of the summit, Malaysia and Indonesia, to raise the issue of striking civilian targets in Afghanistan.

Economics came second to terrorism in the final statement. In the Shanghai Accord, the 21 leaders restated the principle objective of APEC, to promote free trade and reduce trade tariffs in the developed states by 2010 and in developing ones by 2021. They also declared their commitment to the 'Bogor Goals', named after the summit held in the Indonesian city in 1994.