The Hindu Business Line : ‘Asia, Pacific countries need to find their own destiny’

New Delhi, March 28 Countries in Asia and the Pacific region should find their own destiny and that is why the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is forging a compact called Asia-Pacific United for Inclusive and Sustainable Development.

Disclosing this to Business Line in an interview here, the Executive Secretary of ESCAP, Dr Noeleen Heyzer, said that is why Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA) and Asia and the Pacific free trade area Secretariats are looking to each other for a common and concerted plan of action. This has also spawned, she said, “the core issue of common prosperity and also the fact that together we can bring about social progress.”

Stating that regional cooperation is important, Ms Heyzer, who is also the UN Under-Secretary General of this regional arm of the United Nations, said that intra-regional trade among the 62 member countries of Asia and the Pacific is very important with the trading pattern showing 50 per cent of all trade in the region being intra trade.

Ghana meet

Ms Heyzer said that ESCAP will be participating in the forthcoming four-yearly meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Ghana. This would be followed by ESCAP annual meeting in April, where a range of issues from agriculture to market access to members to the specific issue of energy security in Asia and the Pacific region would be analysed.

The ESCAP chief said that in the ongoing Doha Round, if we deal with trade-distorting agricultural subsidies, “we will bring out a few million people out of poverty.

She said that we could no longer focus on aid effectiveness and “if you want development effectiveness we need to have trade and access to market. The best way is to open up the market — it can’t be a one-way street. We need access to augment our agricultural sector and we need to ensure that”.

On energy security, she said the rising oil prices, besides food prices, is another big issue.

“We need to look at how our economies could grow, if we are going to grow, and energy is essential for this. How do we deal with the energy issue in the context of rising energy prices? We need to look at a more integrated form of energy”.

Dealing with volatility

Ms Heyzer said that at the ESCAP annual ministerial meeting next month, “what we would be looking at is regional cooperation in dealing with financial volatility including volatility in the currency markets. Here there is not enough regional mechanism and the international mechanism has not helped us”.

She further pointed out that the sovereign wealth funds from the region is saving the banking system of the rich world which was hit by turmoil in the financial markets, triggered off by the sub-prime crisis.

Asked about her impressions of India, she said that there is a new sense of competence with India emerging as a powerhouse and playing a bigger role.

The issue now, she said, is how to share growth and distribute the benefits of wealth produced by growth.

“I see the problems of growth and distribution are being addressed,” she said citing how as a sequel to farmer suicides, the government has come out with loan waiver programme to deal with agricultural indebtedness.

Finding solutions

She said that the Government created a work guarantee programme for rural people.

But the next role for the government is to bring the private sector into development as the latter should also see that it is accountable, she noted. Ms Heyzer said that for the first time, countries of Asia and the Pacific region have a new generation of wealthy people and the strength to address many of the issues plaguing them and they would do so successfully and in their own way.

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