India Eyeing APEC Membership?

New Delhi: India will be closely watching the proceedings at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bali, Indonesia, this weekend to see whether the grouping would move away from its moratorium on new membership that expired in 2010.

In 1997, APEC set a 10-year moratorium on new membership and agreed in 2007 to consider the issue in 2010. The moratorium was introduced due to concerns that increasing members may make it difficult for the forum to reach agreements and thus lose its influence.

But last November, at their annual summit in Yokohama, Japan, APEC leaders decided not to extend the moratorium.

"Keeping in mind the benefits of APEC membership as well as the need for efficiency to achieve results, we will continue to review the question of APEC new membership going forward," they said in their declaration.

India has discussed the membership issue with Indonesia, the current chair of the 21-member APEC, whose leaders will meet Oct 5-7 in Nusa Dua, Bali, for the summit.

"We had a good conversation with Indonesia," External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said on his return from the East Asia Summit foreign ministers' meeting, ASEAN ministerial conference and the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Brunei in July.

Besides India, there are 11 other economies which are said to have applied for membership. They include Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Laos and Colombia.

There is now a growing view that keeping the moratorium intact for a long time may not help APEC in achieving its objectives, given that other groupings like the East Asia Summit has countries such as Japan, China, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, which belong to both the East Asia Summit and APEC. Also, all the 10 ASEAN members belong to the East Asia Summit, but only some of them are APEC members.

"APEC includes not just East Asian economies but several trans-Pacific ones, in tune with India's emerging interest in economic ties with Latin America," say former US diplomats Teresita C. Schaffer and Howard B. Schaffer, asking Washington to bring in India to APEC.

APEC consists of Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Taiwan, the United States and seven ASEAN members-Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Read More:

Indian Companies Increasingly Employing People With Disabilities
Innovation: Prime Motto Of These 10 Companies