Food System scare for Abac chairman

By Yoke Har Lee

The future of the Apec Food System was thrown into doubt at the media briefing called by its chief advocate, the Apec Business Advisory Council (Abac).

Abac chairman Philip Burdon was briefly left confused by a reporter who claimed the Apec leaders draft final communique, as reported by Reuters, omitted references to the Food System.

Mr Burdon said Abac would be terribly disappointed if its Food System recommendations were not endorsed by the leaders.

On the discussion with the leaders, he said Apec leaders were clear on the view that Apec's goals were to run parallel to those of the WTO and that it should not be a lobby group separate from the WTO.

The meeting, according to sources, had good off-the-cuff responses from the leaders, including Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

The incoming chairman for Abac, Brunei's Timothy Ong, said that next year would see the private sector focus on reviewing and refining the financial architecture of Apec economies; developing a framework where technology could best flourish in the Asia-Pacific; and continuing work on facilitating easy and efficient transactions across Apec economies.

In response to what e-commerce work Abac would focus on, Mr Ong said the private sector would like to take a more holistic look at technology with e-commerce being a big part it.

"We will be putting our thinking on developing the right sort of infrastructure development in developing economies."