SINGAPORE: India is increasingly important to Asia and the Pacific, but its membership in Apec, the main group pursuing regional free trade and development, is likely to still be years away, Apec’s executive director said on Wednesday.

Apec, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, has 21 member economies accounting for more than a third of the world’s population and 46 per cent of world trade volume, but India, despite its robust and growing economy, is not among them.

“You cannot talk about trade in Asia-Pacific if you do not talk about India,” Juan Capunay, who recently took up the top managerial post of Apec, said in an interview at the group’s Singapore headquarters.

While Indian membership would be “convenient” for Apec, it “will have to negotiate membership according to World Trade Organisation regulations” and gain consensus support from existing members, a process that would likely take several years and also depend on Doha global trade talks, Capunay said.

In any case, Apec does not intend to approve any new members until 2010, with membership becoming effective the next year. The first new Asian member may come from Southeast Asia, he said.

He did not name a specific country, but Laos and Cambodia are among those from Southeast Asia not part of Apec. Any new Asian member should be matched with one from Latin America, he said.

“Admission of new membership has to follow some kind of regional balance. One for Asia, it could be anyone in Asia, and one for Latin America,” he said, adding that the consensus among Peru and some other nations was to admit Colombia.

The United States, Canada, Mexico and Chile are the only western hemisphere economies other than Peru in Apec, founded as an informal dialogue among 12 members in 1989.

It has since expanded not just in membership but in activity, with more than 100 formal and informal meetings each year and an important role in expanding free trade.

In that regard it was on track to meet previously set goals such as reducing tariffs to below an average of 5 per cent by 2010 for developed members, said Capunay, who has spent much of his 35-year diplomatic career in Asian countries.

“We have advanced in many areas. We will be able to make the arrangements and adjustments in 2008 and 2009,” he said.

Developing countries have targets for 2020, and he said: “I think (they) will adjust to 2020 in a very smooth way.”

But APEC is not just about lowering trade barriers, Capunay said. It exists to push sustainable development as well, and under Peru’s leadership he wants to do more in social areas such as education and to aid small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The latter employ 65 per cent of Asean’s people overall, but account for just 20 per cent of member exports, he said.

“What we’re trying to do is to make some kind of Apec agenda that will respond more to the needs of Asia-Pacific. If we don’t respond to the SMEs, or help them with education, we will have at the end a free-trade agreement that will not produce any effect to the real economy.”—Reuters