Latin America Needs a Long Term
Strategy Vis-a-vis the Asian Countries

Caracas, 20^th November 1997. On the initiative of CAVEO, a round table was held at SELA headquarters to reflect on the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region in the world economy and the need for Latin America to strengthen its trade and economic relations with the countries in that region.

Latin America and the Caribbean need to develop a long-term intelligence strategy which includes the formation of human resources and the participation of the private, public and academic sectors in order to strengthen their economic and trade relations with the Asia-Pacific region and exploit the potential of both areas to the maximum, a meeting of experts at SELA concluded today.

On the initiative of Dr. Luis Enrique Scarcioffo, president of the Venezuelan Chamber of the Office and Educational Materials Industry (CAVEO), a round table on the issue "Asia-Pacific: Opportunities for Venezuela in an emerging region" was organized at the headquarters of the Latin American Economic System.

The Permanent Secretary of SELA, Ambassador Carlos J. Moneta; Dr. Jose Antonio Martinez, Director General of Trade at the Ministry of Industry and Trade; Dr. Jesus Alberto Fernandez, former Venezuelan ambassador to Japan, and Dr. Pedro Carmona, former president of Conindustria, participated in the meeting.

The object of the meeting was to reflect on the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region in the global economy and the need for Latin America and the Caribbean, currently engaged in intense negotiations aimed at regional and continental integration, not to underestimate the huge potential of the Pacific basin in the long term.

Using figures and reports, the speakers explained the surprising degree of development achieved by many Asian countries in a few years.

Ambassador Fernandez said that opening of South East Asia permitted a huge increase in trade and investment flows and gave as an example Malaysia "which today has trade levels similar to those of Mercosur as a whole."

Ambassador Moneta pointed to the limitations involved if our region focuses its external relations mainly on the United States and Europe, and encouraged the participants not to have "mental restrictions in their way of looking at the world", after noting that we do not have effective relations with Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe or South Asia.

In the case of Asia-Pacific, and "with a provocative attitude, only to promote reflection", Moneta used some figures to compare that region with Latin America: in 1960, Latin America accounted for 8% of the world GDP and Asia 12%; 35 years later, Latin America rose to 9% and Asia to 28% (20% if Japan is not included). As regards foreign investment, in the 1985-95 ten-year period, Asia-Pacific received 58% of the total destined to emerging countries, and Latin America 30%.

The trade balance for the two regions is unfavourable to Latin America by US$10 billion, the Ambassador noted. However, he stressed that fact that "the Asia-Pacific countries are always referred to as big exporters, but we must begin to see them seriously as big importers", and he explained that "if we take only one percentage point of that region's importing capacity, and without any need to displace anybody, that point would mean earnings of US$13 billion for Latin America".

He used as a long-term example the possibilities of the automobile industry in countries like Argentina and Brazil and, in the case of Venezuela, those of the agricultural-food sector, since it is calculated that in the future there will be a deficit of 50 billion tons (especially grains) in China and nobody has thought about that. "That is why I insist on the need for strategic intelligence", he said.

All the speakers agreed on the importance of developing the education systems as the main reason behind the huge Asian success and therefore the need for the private, public and academic sectors to participate in planning and formation.

Dr. Pedro Carmona stressed that because of the rapid political and economic changes affecting the world, external relations have acquired so much importance that they are now part of the national agenda.

When consulted about this, Ambassador Moneta reported on the Asia-Pacific Programme of the Permanent Secretariat of SELA, designed on the basis of the mandates of the Latin American Council as part of its medium-term Work Programme, which consists of four basic elements:

• Exchange of information and intercommunication of networks: with the objective of extending the mutual knowledge between Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia-Pacific, by means of the fluid exchange of information that facilitates the identification of niches for increasing interregional relations.

• Synergy of the productive sectors: exploiting SELA's broad network of connections with entities representing the productive sector in Latin America and the Caribbean to facilitate contacts with companies and business chambers.

• Specialized studies on Latin American-Caribbean and Asia-Pacific economic relations: new specialized studies on bilateral and interregional relations will be developed, in the framework of the globalization of the world economy.

• Latin America/Asia-Pacific Forum: to act as a nucleus of key actors in the public and private sectors, of an informal nature with a three-sided structure (government officials in a personal capacity, businessmen and academics), open to all the countries in the region.

Other Press Releases

http://www.sela.org
sela@sela.org
   SELA,  Permanent Secretariat
Torre Europa, Fourth floor, Urb. Campo Alegre, Av Francisco de Miranda,
Caracas 1060- Venezuela
Tlf: (58) (212) 955.71.11 Fax: (58) (212) 951.52.92