APEC Week Traffic Advisory

[Juan Martinez]

APEC is essentially an annual photo-op. There is an opportunity to showcase what the country has to offer but it is probably more meaningful for countries into "heavy industry" like China or South Korea. As for the 10 billion pesos, it makes one wonder why Clark or Subic were not chosen as sites if we were willing to spend to host the summit. People keep saying that hosting the APEC offers opportunity for long term gains. We successfully hosted the APEC before but did we ever realize the said long term gains, I think not.

so you're saying we spent 10B more or less for a photo op, right? like saying, o canada, japan andito pala kayo pa-picture tayo kay US, is that it, right?

[minicarph]

so you're saying we spent 10B more or less for a photo op, right? like saying, o canada, japan andito pala kayo pa-picture tayo kay US, is that it, right?

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[grover2014]

*Juan Martinez

Lets put it this way, the hosting of the summit rotates every year across member countries and naturally there are costs to hosting the summit and not all of these costs are pecuniary which is why you have all these complaints. I can't recall of a case when a designated host country declined its turn since obviously there is the loss of face. Aside from the prestige, joining the APEC provides access to the "network" for arriving at trade agreements. The question of benefits from APEC membership depends on how this access is used and this is were all this benefits thing becomes a bit tricky. APEC is not like ASEAN, EU or NAFTA or even remotely like the WTO. In the case of the first three, membership allows the member country access to binding trade agreements while in the latter binding rules supposedly provides a conducive trade environment. As an example there are gains from ASEAN membership since imports are cheaper within the trading bloc. There are however no binding trade agreements in APEC at least not of the same nature as in ASEAN, membership in APEC facilitates arriving at trade agreements which a country has to work towards obtaining the needed trade agreements.

The operative word in this discussion is binding trade agreements that accrue from membership. In the case of ASEAN benfits accrue from membership. It is different with APEC since the member country has "work" towards getting the favorable trade agreements. Now has the Philippines made use of opportunities accruing from APEC, we perhaps I have not been reading the papers that well, please correct me.

Now does this mean that the Philippines should withdraw from APEC, well my opinion is definitely no, just imagine the loss of face. I think its really a question of our making the best use of APEC membership, I mean just look at the profile of member countries, almost all have left the Philippines behind (I am not sure about PNG). If you don't believe me, just look at the state of our internet backbone. Don't be too caught up with the GDP growth rate figures, look at the levels as well.

By the way in economics, you always compare benefits with the full costs including externalities. I think estimating the cost of traffic brought about by holding the APEC in Manila would make for an interesting study. The World Bank recently came out with estimates of the cost of traffic in NCR so doing at study on APEC induced traffic would be interesting.

So Juan Martinez sir, I hope that this answers your question of whether what we had was a 10 billion photo-op. The thing is way back in '96 the APEC was held in Subic, with the proper preparation something similar could have been done so please forgive the angry mob, I mean as rationale creatures they should have known better but the situation could have been avoided altogether.

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*Juan Martinez

Lets put it this way, the hosting of the summit rotates every year across member countries and naturally there are costs to hosting the summit and not all of these costs are pecuniary which is why you have all these complaints. I can't recall of a case when a designated host country declined its turn since obviously there is the loss of face. Aside from the prestige, joining the APEC provides access to the "network" for arriving at trade agreements. The question of benefits from APEC membership depends on how this access is used and this is were all this benefits thing becomes a bit tricky. APEC is not like ASEAN, EU or NAFTA or even remotely like the WTO. In the case of the first three, membership allows the member country access to binding trade agreements while in the latter binding rules supposedly provides a conducive trade environment. As an example there are gains from ASEAN membership since imports are cheaper within the trading bloc. There are however no binding trade agreements in APEC at least not of the same nature as in ASEAN, membership in APEC facilitates arriving at trade agreements which a country has to work towards obtaining the needed trade agreements.

The operative word in this discussion is binding trade agreements that accrue from membership. In the case of ASEAN benfits accrue from membership. It is different with APEC since the member country has "work" towards getting the favorable trade agreements. Now has the Philippines made use of opportunities accruing from APEC, we perhaps I have not been reading the papers that well, please correct me.

Now does this mean that the Philippines should withdraw from APEC, well my opinion is definitely no, just imagine the loss of face. I think its really a question of our making the best use of APEC membership, I mean just look at the profile of member countries, almost all have left the Philippines behind (I am not sure about PNG). If you don't believe me, just look at the state of our internet backbone. Don't be too caught up with the GDP growth rate figures, look at the levels as well.

By the way in economics, you always compare benefits with the full costs including externalities. I think estimating the cost of traffic brought about by holding the APEC in Manila would make for an interesting study. The World Bank recently came out with estimates of the cost of traffic in NCR so doing at study on APEC induced traffic would be interesting.

So Juan Martinez sir, I hope that this answers your question of whether what we had was a 10 billion photo-op. The thing is way back in '96 the APEC was held in Subic, with the proper preparation something similar could have been done so please forgive the angry mob, I mean as rationale creatures they should have known better but the situation could have been avoided altogether.

[Juan Martinez]

*Juan Martinez

Lets put it this way, the hosting of the summit rotates every year across member countries and naturally there are costs to hosting the summit and not all of these costs are pecuniary which is why you have all these complaints. I can't recall of a case when a designated host country declined its turn since obviously there is the loss of face. Aside from the prestige, joining the APEC provides access to the "network" for arriving at trade agreements. The question of benefits from APEC membership depends on how this access is used and this is were all this benefits thing becomes a bit tricky. APEC is not like ASEAN, EU or NAFTA or even remotely like the WTO. In the case of the first three, membership allows the member country access to binding trade agreements while in the latter binding rules supposedly provides a conducive trade environment. As an example there are gains from ASEAN membership since imports are cheaper within the trading bloc. There are however no binding trade agreements in APEC at least not of the same nature as in ASEAN, membership in APEC facilitates arriving at trade agreements which a country has to work towards obtaining the needed trade agreements.

The operative word in this discussion is binding trade agreements that accrue from membership. In the case of ASEAN benfits accrue from membership. It is different with APEC since the member country has "work" towards getting the favorable trade agreements. Now has the Philippines made use of opportunities accruing from APEC, we perhaps I have not been reading the papers that well, please correct me.

Now does this mean that the Philippines should withdraw from APEC, well my opinion is definitely no, just imagine the loss of face. I think its really a question of our making the best use of APEC membership, I mean just look at the profile of member countries, almost all have left the Philippines behind (I am not sure about PNG). If you don't believe me, just look at the state of our internet backbone. Don't be too caught up with the GDP growth rate figures, look at the levels as well.

By the way in economics, you always compare benefits with the full costs including externalities. I think estimating the cost of traffic brought about by holding the APEC in Manila would make for an interesting study. The World Bank recently came out with estimates of the cost of traffic in NCR so doing at study on APEC induced traffic would be interesting.

So Juan Martinez sir, I hope that this answers your question of whether what we had was a 10 billion photo-op. The thing is way back in '96 the APEC was held in Subic, with the proper preparation something similar could have been done so please forgive the angry mob, I mean as rationale creatures they should have known better but the situation could have been avoided altogether.

sir, you did not answer my question.

did i ask you whether or not the hosting of the apec summit rotates every year, did i?

sir, my question is this--

so you're saying we spent 10B more or less for photo op, right?

sir, you said it yourself, right?
that "apec is essentially an annual photo-op," right?

do you remember having uttered those words, sir?

yes or no, sir. i am not asking you to explain.

[shadow]

It's true that we were not really affected by the Asian crisis, arguably but what I'm trying to say is the "long term" effect that we were supposed to get from the first APEC held here was derailed due to that's Asian crisis environment.


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[claRkEnt]

Must... resist... correcting... grammar...

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Resist you must : grin:

There's a reason why those words were highlighted (capitalized).

[shadow]

Must... resist... correcting... grammar...

sent via Tapatalk

It's intentional.


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[grover2014]

Sir if you read through what I wrote then it should be obvious that in my opinion and it is just my opinion, that the answer is yes. If you want to consult the trade experts, go to the UP School of Economics!

[Juan Martinez]

Sir if you read through what I wrote then it should be obvious that in my opinion and it is just my opinion, that the answer is yes. If you want to consult the trade experts, go to the UP School of Economics!

sir, you still did not answer my question.

you are saying that our government spent more or less 10 billion pesos for a photo opportunity, right?

[grover2014]

You are right sir in the sense that all countries, and not just in the Pacific rim, were affected by the 97 crisis in terms of medium term planning however as to the question of were there substantial structural effects on the Philippine economy. Well, that was the subject of the debate and the consensus was limited impact ( I don't know if there are published research papers but there are at least at the working paper level just don't know in what journals these were published).

The countries most affected were the Asian tiger economies as they had to do restructuring of medium and long term plans - SK and Thailand. the odd man out was Malaysia which stood its ground and did not float (depreciate) it currency. A friend of mine was with the Malaysian economic planning bureau and it turned out he had the last laugh on us as look at Malaysia now (of course we don't have their petro dollars).

As Mr. Juan Martinez was a bit adamant in asking for an explicit answer, my (explicit) answer to your query is no we did not have to do major restructuring and no the 97 crisis did not set us back significantly (granted at the individual level there were people seriously affected - those who denominated their loan in dollars but these were miniscule at the macroeconomic level). In reference to the Asian tiger economies, they quickly got over the setback and again look at were they are now, SK cars compete even with the Jap cars.

Sorry for the rather long reply

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You are right sir in the sense that all countries, and not just in the Pacific rim, were affected by the 97 crisis in terms of medium term planning however as to the question of were there substantial structural effects on the Philippine economy. Well, that was the subject of the debate and the consensus was limited impact ( I don't know if there are published research papers but there are at least at the working paper level just don't know in what journals these were published).

The countries most affected were the Asian tiger economies as they had to do restructuring of medium and long term plans - SK and Thailand. the odd man out was Malaysia which stood its ground and did not float (depreciate) it currency. A friend of mine was with the Malaysian economic planning bureau and it turned out he had the last laugh on us as look at Malaysia now (of course we don't have their petro dollars).

As Mr. Juan Martinez was a bit adamant in asking for an explicit answer, my (explicit) answer to your query is no we did not have to do major restructuring and no the 97 crisis did not set us back significantly (granted at the individual level there were people seriously affected - those who denominated their loan in dollars but these were miniscule at the macroeconomic level). In reference to the Asian tiger economies, they quickly got over the setback and again look at were they are now, SK cars compete even with the Jap cars.

Sorry for the rather long reply

[grover2014]

Sigh..... yes, in my opinion!

[Juan Martinez]

i will wait for my answer until hell freezes over

[_Cathy_]

APEC Summit in Manila is over so I am closing the thread.

Thank you badkuk for opening this informative thread