Asia Economic Community Forum Launched with High Hopes
Asia Economic Community Forum Launched with High Hopes
  • Chung Myung-je
  • 승인 2009.10.29 17:07
  • 댓글 0
이 기사를 공유합니다

Korea is on the way to recovery from a protracted recession caused by the global financial crisis last year. And its profile is being raised in many directions as Philip Bowring, a columnist on Asian economies for the International Herald Tribune and a former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, wrote in an article for the New York Times on Oct. 23. “Korea is the host of next year’s Group of 20 summit; it has signed a free-trade deal with the European Union; it is seeking a big increase in its voting power at the International Monetary Fund to reflect its role in global trade,” he stressed.

AEC Forum

Keynote Speakers

Under these circumstances, the Asia Economic Community (AEC) Forum will be launched in Seoul in November as an annual event on a note of high hopes.  The goal will be to listen to global leaders’ views and ideas and make suggestions to policy makers. As its motto shows, “Creating One Asia Together,” the AEC Forum envisages laying the groundwork for an Asian economic community patterned after the European Union (EU). As it turns out, fertile ground has been provided for Asia-wide discussions about launching an EU-style Asian community, given the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus three East Asian nations – South Korea, China and Japan – and several other regional groups involving Central and Southwestern Asian nations.

Former ESCAP Executive Secretary

Standing behind all this ambitious plan is Kim Hak-su, chairman of the Asia Economic Community Foundation and Asia Economic Community Forum. In every respect, he is deemed to be the right person for the implementation of the AEC Forum’s far-reaching program, considering his impressive background. For seven years from 2000 to 2007, he was the executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the regional arm of the UN Secretariat for the Asian and Pacific region established to encourage economic cooperation among its member states.

His stellar career also includes serving as Korea's Ambassador for International Economic Affairs, as Senior Research Fellow with the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), as the London Representative of the Bank of Korea, as the Executive Director and President of Daewoo International Steel Corporation in New York, and as President of the Hanil Banking Institute. He also served in the 1980s as the UN Chief Planning Officer and Chief Technical Adviser attached to two Pacific Island developing countries, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. As Secretary-General of the Colombo Plan from 1995-1999, he revitalized the 24-member intergovernmental Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific.

Creating One Asia Together

Dr. Kim Hak-su, chairman of the Asia Economic Community (AEC) Foundation and Former ESCAP Executive Secretary

Upbeat about the upcoming forum scheduled for Nov. 11-13 at Songdo Convensia in Incheon, Kim expounded on his plan in an interview with the Korea IT Times. In his office jam-packed with staffers busy preparing for the forum in downtown Seoul in mid-October, he said, “Current efforts to form a EU-style Asian community are not new. Such efforts have already started. Asia is so big that sub-regional groups, such as ASEAN, South Asia, Central and West Asia, have already made efforts to build blocs of their own under the motto Creating One Asia Together.

He also said, “The ESCAP looks at Asia as a whole. The first consideration for an Asian community is how to efficiently unify Asian economies. This is the first stage for the process.”

The second consideration, as he laid out, is that this is not quite a new project. “While I was its executive secretary, ESCAP laid the framework. An idea was conceived to build a cross-Asian railway and a cross-Asian highway to link all Asian nations. Groundwork for such a cross-Asian transportation linkage was laid in 2004-2006,” he said. “The third consideration was initiated after the financial crisis swept through Asia in 1997. Finance ministers and governors of central banks in Asia met in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2001, where they agreed to launch an IMF-style financial monitoring body and strike SWAP deals worth US$7 billion among central banks in Asia as a start. Again in May this year, the ASEAN+3 summit agreed to increase the SWAP amount to US$12 billion.”

After all, the Asian economic crisis motivated the Asian nations to join hands. Mahathir bin Mohamad, then Malaysian Prime Minister, invited leaders of ASEAN+3 countries to Kuala Lumpur in 1999 to find an Asia-wide solution. In 2002, former President Km De-jung also proposed an East Asian economic community. On top of that, President Lee Myung-bak proposed the New Asia Initiative, a new diplomatic strategy to strengthen cooperation among Asian nations as a way to overcome the economic crisis and raise Korea’s global profile in March this year.

Kim Hak-su went on to say, “The ASEAN+3 summit discusses various issues, such as economic unity and trade. An atmosphere has been created in Asia in support of strategic cooperative partnership. All this suggests that we are in a very favorable atmosphere in which we can discuss an Asian economic community.”

He then reiterated the importance of learning from and following the example of the EU, which was started as the European Coal and Steel Community established in 1952 with 12 European nations as members. At first, the Europeans did not talk about politics or security, but focused only on economy.

Three Day Debate

Dr. Kim Hak-su, chairman of the Asia Economic Community (AEC) Forum, discusses preparations for the forum with his AEC Forum Organization Committee

Now, his wishes are to have discussions on such an idea at the forum in a free atmosphere. Despite the nature of its goals, the forum is an open arena for all academics, business leaders and political leaders from everywhere in the world who are interested in an Asian community. It will consist of three parts – a Grand Debate of 21st Century Capitalism, Grand Compromise among US, China and EU, and Grand Dialogue between Asia and the West.

The topic of the first-day session is “What will happen to capitalism in the 21st century” which will focus on advocates and opponents of the globalization and countermeasures. Just in the nick of time, Korea will host the G20 summit in 2010. During this session, it is possible for the participants to discuss economic agenda items for the upcoming G20. The second-day session concerns the world, which is divided into three economic spheres – the United States, China and Europe. It will concentrate on “How these three regions can seek compromise” The third-day session will deal with East-West issues, for which two prominent Korean and French scholars, poet Kim Chi-ha and public intellectual Guy Sorman, will give keynote lectures. "The third-day session will be particularly interesting because there will be discussions between advocates of capitalism and those on the opposite side," said Kim with a look of anticipation.

To make the forum an arena of multi-focused views and ideas, the AEC Forum will also host a variety of group sessions such as Asian CEO Exchange, Ambassador Roundtable, Presidents of Universities Session, and Foreign Correspondents’ Roundtable.

Era of Asia

On the first day, there will be discussions on an Asian Value Survey on human rights, political systems and trade, which the AEC Forum will conduct every year, with a focus on the economy. On the second day, a special session called the Incheon Session will make a formal announcement of the Asian City Competitiveness Index. This session will attract much attention in that Korea is a heavily urban-centered nation with 85 percent of its population living in urban areas. In all of Asia, about 37 percent of the population, or about 4 billion Asian people, live in urban areas. The percentage will likely increase to about 54 percent in 30 years. On the third day, the Asian Regional Integration Index will be announced, the Era of Asia will be declared, and policy suggestions will be made.

Lastly, how long will it take to build an Asian economic community Kim said, “I think it will take presumably 50 years. So we need to bring young students, who can live longer than us, together to participate in this kind of discussion.”

Unlike other similar forums like the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, business and political leaders as well as academics can present their opinions from different angles at the AEC Forum. Kim said, “We want to make this forum distinguishable from others. The Davos Forum is attended by many prominent people and seems to focus on discussions. So is the Knowledge Forum. But we’ll bring all views together and compile and publish them."

The Era of Asia will be declared and policy suggestions made on the last day. Policy suggestions will include launching an Asia Community Committee, building a research network throughout Asia, and founding an Asian Leaders Academy, modeled after European University, in Songdo, which would provide much scholarship.

The AEC Forum is dedicated to integrating the Asian region. Its goal seems within grasp, given that “Asia needs the formation of an integrated economic community as its long-term countermeasure.” As its organizers say, the AEC Forum is a “place where global leaders gather to confirm the potential of Asia as a dynamic engine driving the world economy, to discuss solutions to the global economic crisis and to picture a vision of an Asian economic community.”


댓글삭제
삭제한 댓글은 다시 복구할 수 없습니다.
그래도 삭제하시겠습니까?
댓글 0
댓글쓰기
계정을 선택하시면 로그인·계정인증을 통해
댓글을 남기실 수 있습니다.

  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT US
  • SIGN UP MEMBERSHIP
  • RSS
  • 2-D 678, National Assembly-daero, 36-gil, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, Korea (Postal code: 07257)
  • URL: www.koreaittimes.com | Editorial Div: 82-2-578- 0434 / 82-10-2442-9446 | North America Dept: 070-7008-0005 | Email: info@koreaittimes.com
  • Publisher and Editor in Chief: Monica Younsoo Chung | Chief Editorial Writer: Hyoung Joong Kim | Editor: Yeon Jin Jung
  • Juvenile Protection Manager: Choul Woong Yeon
  • Masthead: Korea IT Times. Copyright(C) Korea IT Times, All rights reserved.
ND소프트