CHAPTER 8 - Integrating the Business Community in the APEC Process: Genesis of the Pacific Business Forum

Summary

Introduction

On a clear November day in 1993, some of the world's most powerful political leaders had a good idea to boost economic development: they decided to engage the people who are most directly involved in economic development — the business community.

Though APEC was inaugurated in 1989, it was not till 1993 that a schedule of annual meetings of the top leaders of APEC was set in place. The very first Leaders Meeting was held on the serene and beautiful Blake Island, near Seattle, in 1993, under the chairmanship of President Bill Clinton. At this meeting, the Leaders decided to ask the business community of APEC to establish a forum to “identify issues APEC should address to facilitate regional trade and investment and encourage the further development of business networks throughout the region”. Thus was born the Pacific Business Forum (PBF), later renamed as the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC).

The PBF was perhaps the first ever formal and independent business forum that was to be appended to the annual summit of a major grouping of economies. In the past, though economic development was often at the top of the agenda in many international groupings, political leaders and government officials rarely engaged the business community directly and formally in their meetings. APEC Leaders made a significant departure from this practice and decided to integrate the business community as part of the APEC deliberative process. They personally appointed the PBF members and heard directly from them without the usual layers of intermediaries.

Establishment of PBF

The APEC Leaders’ decision to establish the Pacific Business Forum was transmitted by a US emissary, Ms Sandra Kristoff, Assistant US Trade Representative, to Professor Tommy Koh who, while being an Ambassador-at- Large with the Government of Singapore, was also the head of a Singapore thinktank, the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). Sandy Kristoff requested Koh to convene the first meeting of the PBF and for IPS to act as its Secretariat. The US probably felt that it was better for a small country than for the US to act as convenor. Singapore is small, friendly and acceptable to all the APEC members. Koh accepted the US request.