Javier Prieto de la Fuente, chairman of the ABAC committee Courtesy Javier Prieto

It was a long way to come for many of the officials who took part in the APEC ministerial meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco in late May. The Mexican resort town was in full bloom, with brilliant bougainvillea and other spring flowers creating a festive holiday atmosphere. But the trade ministers from the 21 countries of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation were there to work.

To underscore the importance of the meeting, Mexican President Vicente Fox himself opened the meeting, the first ministerial meeting for Mexico as 2002 host for APEC.

“We want to create a reliable platform of access to other markets, and we want to be a true strategic partner who purchases, sells, trades, and also invests in other countries,” Fox declared to the trade ministers. For Mexico, the chance to host the 2002 APEC meetings provides another opportunity to demonstrate its intention of becoming a major player in the world economy.

The Puerto Vallarta meeting was the first of several high-level conferences that will culminate in the Summit of Leaders in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, on October 26 and 27, bringing Fox together with his counterparts from all the APEC countries. It is the first time the meetings of APEC, founded in Australia in 1989, have been hosted by a Latin American country.

APEC, with giants like the United States and Japan as members, represents more than half the world’s economic production. The meetings this year are designed to move the organization closer to its goals, formulated in 1994 at a conference in Bogor, Indonesia, to remove all trade barriers among its developed country members by 2010 and among developing country members by 2020 at the latest.

“If APEC holds true to these goals, the rest of the world will be pulled along,” George Yeo, Singapore’s minister for Trade and Industry, told the conference.

The grouping includes two of the biggest and most successful free trade associations in the world—the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Its 21 members are Japan, China, Russia, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei and Philippines in Asia; Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea in the Pacific; and the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru in the Americas.

Altogether there will be more than 100 meetings, including seven ministerial meetings, the leaders’ meeting and CEO summit, says Jose A. Acevedo, general coordinator of the organizing committee. The logistical and protocol challenges are immense. In Cabo San Lucas alone, Acevedo says, 70 kilometers of new fiber optic cable are being laid to accommodate the demand for phone and internet connections during the meeting. National and state governments are spending more than $100 million to build a bypass around the town so that government leaders can go from the airport to their hotels in 10 minutes.

The Baja California resort was one of the few possible sites despite the work required. “We needed to find a place with enough rooms and meeting rooms,” says Acevedo. Mexico City was ruled out from the start. “That would have been chaos,” says Acevedo, whose staff consists of 180 people, one of the smallest organizing committees to work on the APEC meetings.

Mexican officials are promoting their APEC chairmanship under the motto “Year of Implementation.”

“There has been lots of progress in consensus building, but not much progress in delivery,” says Acevedo in explaining the Mexican emphasis on implementation. This means making concrete commitments, setting deadlines, and creating a mechanism of accountability to review progress on the commitments, he says.

Another emphasis in the Mexican meetings is to reduce formality and to encourage more real discussion rather than just exchange of prepared papers, Acevedo says.

One of the innovative features of APEC is to encourage dialogue with business. An APEC Business Advisory Council, ABAC, consists of three representatives from each of the 21 economies.

“We are also focusing on implementation,” says Javier Prieto de la Fuente, one of the Mexican representatives on ABAC and chairman of the group this year. The goal of ABAC is to facilitate trade and investment, says Prieto, a Cemex SA executive who is also chairman of the Confederation of Chambers of Commerce in Mexico.

For Mexico, says Prieto, participation in APEC is a crucial part of alerting business to the need to be competitive in a global market. “The globalization process is a must,” he says. The Mexican government agrees.

"Mexico’s success as a first-class manufacturing hub relies more and more on its ability to attract investors from countries all over the world," says Raul Urteaga, Economic Counselor in the Ministry of the Economy, the agency responsible for Mexico’s trade and investment policies. Urteaga concludes that the APEC Summit provides the perfect opportunity to showcase Mexico’s strengths and its diversified economic sectors.