THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam)
___________________________________________________________________________
______
For Immediate Release November 15, 2000
PRESS BRIEFING
BY
NATIONAL ECONOMIC ADVISOR GENE SPERLING
National Stadium
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam
8:02 P.M. (L)
MR. SPERLING: I'm Gene Sperling, the President's National Economic
Advisor. Tomorrow will be the main session of what will be the President's
eighth APEC. As you know, the history of APEC leaders' meeting started
with President Clinton at Blake Island in the state of Washington in 1993.
Since then, this is the eighth consecutive year that the leaders have met.
The focus, obviously, has been very much on global integration and the
progress that has been made forward. In this one we will be continuing
that progress. Much of the focus on this one will be on issues involving
the new economy. Many of the things that will be discussed here today, or
that will be in the leaders' statement, include maintaining the moratorium
on the customs duties, on e-commerce. There has been a significant focus
on how electronic commerce should be handled; an agreement that we should
try to focus on the least restrictive means of doing that; to study how the
WTO should apply those rules to e-commerce.
In Auckland of last year, one of the things that was done here was a
focus on having an e-commerce readiness assessment. That was done -- that
was carried on at Okinawa and has led to the private sectors and the
governments going through the entire list of structures dealing with the
Internet economy and e-commerce and the degree that the countries are up to
speed on those. As we listed here, 19 of the 21 countries have completed
their e-commerce assessment tools.
One of the other things that developed very much out of the
discussions going into Okinawa is to put all of the different things that
are being done on the digital divide -- you can count 16,600 web sites on
the digital divide -- to put them in an organized forum so that a
developing country who wanted to know something that a Cisco or an America
On Line were doing, had a way of accessing and having interactive access
going forward.
We also, as the President mentioned today, put forward these trade
plans on the Internet so, as the President said, one can compare and
contrast them. Focus also is on adopting standards to promote technology
trade, particularly a one-test, one standard, so that the countries -- so
the companies dealing with computers or the modems, et cetera, don't have
to go through 21 different standards, 21 different testings for each
country, but can work towards a self-regulated, one-test, one standard
approach.
And then we also are launching this anti-piracy software initiative,
which is to ensure that the governments of all the APEC countries ensure
that they will purchase and use non-pirated software in their government
offices. In APEC as a whole, the number of pirated software ranges
anywhere from 50 to 90 percent in most of the countries. And so in doing
this, this would be a major step forward, not only for protecting the
intellectual property rights of American and other companies, but also for
developing indigenous software companies within those countries.
Obviously, as the President mentioned today, people wonder about
whether the phrase digital divide is over-used. But there is an Australian
government study that is out, which the President referred to today, that
shows that 11 of the 21 countries by the year 2005 will average only 4
percent Internet use, while eight will average 72 percent by 20005. That
is a dramatic divide. Yet, Korea -- the President just met, obviously,
with Kim Dae-Jung, and one of the things they spoke abut when they weren't
talking about North Korea, was the amazing development of the Internet in
South Korea; where South Korea breaks all the records and is predicted to
have 75, 80 percent of their people on the Internet by the year 2005.
Teenagers in Korea go to PC shops instead of playing video games. Their
housewives, by almost 2 million are waiting lists.
So there is the ability when a country has the right competition, et
cetera, to make that progress, and this will be one of the main focuses
that the President and the leaders will talk about.
Concerning launching a new WTO round, this obviously consumed much of
the trade ministers' meeting and it will be much of the focus of the
afternoon session. It's no secret that we would very much like the
leaders' declaration to stress that the launch take place not only as early
as possible, but specifically next year, in 2001. And that is a point that
we will be pressing hard for.
We are also announcing today -- will be announcing in the leaders'
document as part of this a multilateral aviation open skies agreement with
Brunei, Chili, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States. It is our
belief that this will be a path-breaking agreement. There is an enormous
number of bilateral agreements, open sky agreements that exist in the world
today, which has helped to open both commercial and passengers, as well as
cargo.
Nonetheless, the new frontier will be whether or not this can be
brought together. And while these five countries is just a start, it is
our belief that this will be infectious in a positive way and it will lead
to greater, more open skies agreements at a larger, multilateral level in
the future and will put more pressure on other countries to want to join.
Obviously, it will help streamline the process, not make people have
to do separate negotiations for every form of competing travel. It
liberalizes the degree of equity investment that can come in to countries,
which will be particularly helpful to lesser developed countries who are
trying to bring in equity investment. Finally, we'll be launching the
chemical trade dialogue, just very much like the auto dialogue that we did
in the last year's.
That is our summary of events and deliverables.
Q Gene, on the digital divide, what specifics can we expect the
leaders to put forth, in terms of bridging the gap; In terms of more money
for infrastructure, more money for software, more training, what can we
expect specifics?
MR. SPERLING: Well, I think that as you know at Okinawa, we came
forward with the digital opportunity task force. Since then we have had a
number of meetings fleshing out the digital opportunity task force and, in
fact, it has developed in a way that we think is very positive. The
digital opportunity task force, or as we call it the DOT force, will have
not only the G-8, but will have nine -- G-8 plus the EU -- but will have
nine developing countries as well that will be part of that, including
Indonesia, China, Egypt, Senegal, South Africa. So it will have broad
representation, and it will have representation from NGOs and private
sector, as well.
And so we have very much tried to, through that process, create a
forum in which there can be greater coordination of the efforts, and more
resources going forward. When you are talking about the digital divide in
the United States, you're often talking simply about resources. When
you're talking about it in the global context, you're talking about the
basic infrastructure. And so as unglamorous as something like the
readiness assessment may be, it has actually been the state of the art work
that was done. What was developed out of APEC in the six areas is what
private sector and companies are looking forward, working together to
assess where they are, where the gaps have to be filled. And it
essentially gives a road map for developing and developed countries alike
as to where they have to go.
There's a large compendium of individual projects that are being done,
some quite significant on the digital divide. As you know, Hewlett Packard
has just launched a $1 billion initiative that they're doing on a
commercial terms. But I think much of this has been uncoordinated, and
that there's very little information sharing. So when you look at the
knowledge network, putting all of the different sources of resources for
the digital divide on the Internet so that any country could find out what
every project is, how they could become involved, is one of the things. I
don't think what you see out here, a specific commitment of this many
billions of dollars, though I do believe that what we have done through the
digital opportunity task force and pushed here will lead to billions of
dollars in commitment.
Because as we met with the major companies, who again in their own
ways, whether -- are doing significant amounts, they are looking very much
for this type of coordinated effort. And I think that we can see more.
Also the digital opportunity task force is going to be co-housed by the
UNDP and the World Bank, both of which have resources available, and again
we'd be looking for more support.
So there's no simple answer here, but I think when you look over the
last year, there's been significant progress in coming together in the
private sector-public sector commitment.
The other thing that's being done here is the -- is what we're calling
the readiness partnerships. And we're doing one -- the United States is
doing one with Indonesia. And there are others underway. And those would
be the idea that now that you have the readiness assessment, that you would
now ask for the private sector to partner, particularly with lesser
developed countries, on ways that they could help spread the use of
information technology more broadly throughout the economies.
Q Gene, on the WTO talk issues, back in Seattle in December,
President Clinton in his talk to the leaders who were there, the trade
leaders who were there, said that he would support labor and environmental
standards. And also said that under some conditions he would eventually
support using sanctions against developing countries that failed to agree
-- to live up to internationally agreed labor standards.
Is this an intention that he plans to repeat tomorrow during the
course of the talks?
MR. SPERLING: Well, David, that's not exactly how I would remember
that part of the Seattle part. The comment he made was, as you know, in an
interview with Seattle where people were asking him over the long-term
whether or not the trade labor issues would be, could be enforced at some
point. And he did speak of including labor in his future vision.
But that was never our focus in WTO. What we were focusing on was a
labor working group in which there would be at least two requirements. One
was that it be an ongoing process. And, secondly, that the process report
directly into the ministerials. And that is still our aspiration in trade.
There is no question that this is an area of significant misunderstanding
and I'm sure will be discussed significantly in the afternoon session
tomorrow.
Many developing countries see the request for labor as being -- for
labor standards or for a discussion of labor as a veiled means of
protectionism or a way for advanced countries having reached a certain
standard to hold back developing countries who are still trying to grow
further. That has never been our aspiration. Our aspiration is simply to
have a committee in which these issues could be discussed and discussed in
a developmental context, so that they would not be stunting the growth, but
ensuring, as the President often says, that you're not having a race to the
bottom on labor and environment.
Q How would you rate your chances of obtaining agreement for a
start next year to the WTO round?
MR. SPERLING: I feel confident we did not achieve that. In the trade
ministerial the focus was on setting the agenda and launching at the
earliest possible date. But that was done with the understanding that we
would re-litigate that for the leaders' declaration in the hope that we
would get a clearer statement of launching in 2001. And I feel -- we feel
optimistic about that, but that is a matter in which there is some
controversy.
Obviously, going back to David's issue, what's important here is that
you are seeing in the post-Seattle environment a renewed commitment to
launching a WTO round. In APEC, which is the most diverse, or one of the
most diverse organizations, not the G-8, but one in which you have a mix of
advanced and lesser economically advanced countries. For APEC to come
together and make this as a clear statement shows a renewed political will
to go forward. Obviously, that will still mean having to work out the
sensitive issues on agriculture, on labor, et cetera, but I do think it
shows more of a willingness to -- on the countries to seek a practical,
achievable new round.
And so I think there is renewed interest, and I think the United
States' action in passing the African CVI initiatives and some of the
actions done around the world to show more of a willingness by the advanced
countries to ensure that this would be a round that would be favorable to
developing countries has helped push things forward.
So, again, I think it is significant for an organization this mixed to
express that type of renewed will.
Q Gene, what makes you think that your anti-piracy addition would
be any more effective than agreements that are already on the books on this
particular issue in this part of the world?
MR. SPERLING: Well, what you're doing is you're going to the area
that the governments can control directly. I think that the governments
would say that the piracy is so widespread that it is difficult for them to
get a handle on. By focusing on the use of non-pirated software in
government offices, you're having not only the government set a standard,
but you're also creating a market in those economies for software
production there. And it is our hope, too, that countries will realize
more of the benefits.
Most of these countries are loosing anywhere between $50 and $200
million a year in tax revenues by not having -- by relying on pirated
software that is not taxed, not collected. It means that the jobs that are
being -- the jobs associated with software are jobs of people selling
things on street corners, as opposed to jobs -- high-paying jobs as
programmers, as developers.
So it is an important start and it is one in which the governments,
themselves, have the most direct control. And so it's not the full answer;
it's a positive start.
Q Gene, there are a number of bilateral trade agreements being
signed and being negotiated now by APEC members. Does it worry you that
this is a sign that the APEC trade liberalization itself is slowing down,
becoming moribund?
MR. SPERLING: Oh, I'm sorry, moribund. I thought you said more, so I
was waiting for more what. (Laughter.)
No, not necessarily. But I think that this will be an important
issue, and one of the most important issues -- this will be an important
issue in the afternoon, and I think if you were looking at what is one of
the most important new debates in the global trading arena, it is whether
or not free trade agreements or regional trade agreements can be building
blocks to support the multilateral trading system, or whether they are
diversions and obstacles.
And I think that -- I think that is an issue for debate and
discussion. I think many people would answer, it depends on the form they
take. If these free trade agreements are ones in which people cherry pick
their best areas, they're not comprehensive, then I think that economists
would say that they're trade diverting and not efficient, but also they --
I think that would be a move away from supporting a multi-lateral trade
system.
The question really is, if you have standards for them which insist
that they are comprehensive, and open, the type that others could come join
in, can that be a building block for going forward? I think in the United
States we are certainly open to the latter interpretation, that free trade
agreements that are open and comprehensive can be potentially building
blocks in the multilateral trading system. But I do think that is -- I do
think that is one of the most important debates in the global trade area
right now.
So, again, I think the answer is that you really have to look at the
nature of the agreement, itself, and whether it fits well into the values
that are within the GATT and the WTO system.
Q Is there an explanation for why there are so many of these
bilaterals taking place?
MR. SPERLING: Well, as Mike Moore likes to say concerning the WTO,
its' greatest strength and greatest weakness is its' reliance on consensus.
So I think in a very simple sense the ability to work out one's -- a
comprehensive agreement with one country or two countries is far easier
than a consensus movement, as we saw in Seattle, when so many different
countries are going forward.
If the countries are coming together and doing comprehensive
agreements that are consistent with what an ultimate new launch of the
round would be, then I think one could argue that those could be promoting.
If, again, they're simply just countries kind of cherry picking products,
then I think it is starting to move away. Clearly, Chile and a couple of
other countries have made great use of these, and have proliferated
several.
But the afternoon session is actually on both the WTO and regional and
free trade agreements. And, again, I think one of the major topics will be
whether or not they are building blocks or stumbling blocks to the
multilateral trade system.
THE PRESS: Thank you.
END 8:24 P.M. (L)
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