AVERILLA, ROSANNA C.

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APEC and ASEAN: Two Main Bodies Facilitating Cooperation

Between Nations of the Asia Pacific Region
APEC was established in 1989. APEC is primarily responsible for facilitating economic
growth, cooperation, trade and investment in the region of the Asia Pacific. It was established to
promote economic integration around the Pacific Rim and with the goal of being able to sustain
economic growth especially among its 21 member nations. The members of APEC are Australia,
Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore,
Thailand, United States, and Vietnam.
To be able to effectively reach its goals and be able to help its member countries build a
better domestic economy, APEC has established a framework which serves as its roadmap
towards achieving success in its operations. And the following are the basic principles which are
associated in the said roadmap are non-discrimination, comprehensiveness; simultaneous start,
continuous process, and differentiated timetables; comparability; standstill; transparency;
consistency with the World Trade Organization; flexibility; and cooperation. And based on these
major principles, APEC is seen to operate on "the basis of non-binding commitments, open
dialogue and equal respect for the views of all participating economies." Unlike other regional
economic organizations, APEC does not have a binding treaty that sets forth an institutional
framework for economic integration. However, the influence of APEC on the Asia-Pacific region
and world economy should not be underestimated. APEC has greatly contributed to the
liberalization of world trade and investment. The frequent meetings of the leaders of its members
and the exchange of trade information within APEC have facilitated mutual understandings
between the least developed nations and the developed nations.
ASEAN, on the other hand, was established in 1967 by five nations: Indonesia, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. In the 1980's and 1990's, five other nations joined ASEAN:
Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Vietnam. Indonesia, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam and Vietnam are also members of APEC.
The goals of ASEAN are to accelerate the regional economic growth, facilitate social and culture
development, and pursue regional peace, stability and rule of law. The primary principle of
ASEAN was noninterference. ASEAN is open to the participation of all States in the Southeast
Asian region which are willing to subscribe to its aims, principles and purposes. It also aims to
represent the collective will of the countries of Southeast Asia to bind themselves together in
friendship. It hopes through the joint efforts of its members to secure for its peoples the blessings
of peace, freedom and prosperity.
ASEAN is a treaty based organization. Compared with APEC, ASEAN is a much smaller
and weaker entity. However, in recent years, ASEAN played an important role in advocating the

interests of the least developed nations in Southeast Asia, especially after the failure of the round
trade talks in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle. By establishing external relations
with the developed economies and other regional trade organizations, ASEAN has been active in
promoting interregional dialogue and cooperation.
CHAN, JULLIANE MARY
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Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established in August 8, 1967

through Declaration of Bangkok and now known as the ASEAN Declaration. Originally, ASEAN
consists of five countries in Southeast Asia region, namely Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia,
Philippines and Singapore. However, it is now known to have expanded to ten countries which
include Brunei, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos and Myanmar. The goal of the ASEAN is covering
cooperation in economic, social, cultural, technical, educational, and so on. In addition, these
organizations also promote regional peace and stability with respect and abide by the laws of
justice and otherwise comply with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations (UN). The
objective of establishing ASEAN is the first is to accelerate economic growth, social and
cultural, second is inculcate and reap the benefits of regional development, the third provides
training and research facility, the fourth increase the standard of living (agriculture, industry,
trade) and the final objective is to form a close relationships and profitable .
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a semi-official organization which was
formed through the first conference in November 1989, in Canberra, Australia. Now, APEC has
21 members which are mainly Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Canada, Hong Kong,
Indonesia, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, New
Zealand, Peru, The Russian Federation, Singapore, Philippines, Chinese Taipei, United States of
America, Thailand and Viet Nam. APEC has grown to be an important intermediate in promoting
open trade and economic cooperation in the region. The main objective of APEC is to accelerate
the growth of economies in the Asian-Pacific region and foster a spirit of cooperation among
member countries. One of its objectives is to maintain the organization and Development
Division Asian-Pacific region for the benefit of the people and thus, contribute to world
economic Development Division. And the next objective is to reduce trade barriers in goods and
services between member countries in line with the principles of GATT without disturbing the
economic interests of others.
Advantages of the establishments of ASEAN and APEC are to increase the flow of
employment and expertise between developed countries with developing country. Through
cooperation between Asian, expertise or skilled labor can be absorbed into the State to help them
improve productivity.