The news will be most likely announced at the forum, and U.S. delegates have confirmed the possibility. This news has provoked a surge of business enthusiasm among the forum's 21 delegations.
The forum has begun with a meeting of senior officials, as ambassadors at large are described. They will harmonize the main items of the forum's program and forward their recommendations to the ministers of trade and foreign affairs, who will pass on the baton to presidents and prime ministers. The latter will hold a summit meeting at the end of the week.
The key element of the forum, a summit meeting of business leaders, where the main APEC ideas are generated, will continue throughout the week, culminating in a water puppet show on Lake Hoan Kiem in Hanoi. The lake is a geographic center of Hanoi, and the puppet theater is a unique cultural feature of the Vietnamese capital. U.S. President George W. Bush, Russian president Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other leaders will attend the show.
Russia's colleagues are enthusiastic about the high probability of its joining the WTO because Russia is a member of APEC and therefore a business partner of the other 20 members.
APEC was set up in 1989 as an informal ministerial-level dialogue group with 12 members, and one of its goals is to encourage thinking that the success and prosperity of one country amounts to the success for all other states.
Therefore, Russia's joining the WTO opens new vistas for the member economies, promising a new surge of the Russian economy and its growing trade with each of the other APEC members.
In other words, Russia's ranking has grown and will remain high until Putin and Bush validate or disprove the expectations in Hanoi on November 18-19, or in Moscow before that.
The Hanoi forum, like all other APEC meetings, is expected to provide new information for determining if the wind from the Pacific favors economic growth or not. According to statistics, the picture is rather complicated.
Anita Douglas, head of the APEC Secretariat's department of communications and public affairs in Singapore, has brought to Hanoi comprehensive data about the 21 member economies and expert evaluation of the situation there. However, she cannot supply the average growth rate for them, probably because the figure would be as senseless as "the average temperature in the hospital."
Statistics show that the Pacific has become the global center of economic growth. In 2005, China and Vietnam were the growth leaders, with 10.2% and 8.4% growth rates. Russia, Singapore and Peru posted a 6.4% growth, whereas growth rates have declined in Australia, Canada and the United States.
When the growth of such a giant economy as the United States, which produces $12 trillion worth of goods and services, goes down 1%, this means that the other APEC countries lose business with the U.S. worth GDP of a small state. This is why Russia's expected accession to the WTO is such good news for the organization.
APEC deals with all aspects of economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region other than those that are in the WTO competence (tariffs and duties on imported goods and services). In other words, it deals with investment and a host of problems that hinder the free movement of goods, services, people and ideas.
The senior officials ended their meeting by outlining issues on which the APEC member states should cooperate, such as new ways to fight infringement on copyright, notably piracy, fakes, and information campaigns for the general public.
They also discussed the issue of numerous free trade agreements between two or several countries of the region. The trouble is that there are too many such agreements, which should be streamlined, and APEC looks like the best candidate for doing this.
Another priority at the forum will be the Food Defense Initiative, which stipulates common standards, sanitary norms and other issues. And lastly, the forum participants are expected to adopt new decisions on fighting epidemics and the consequences of major natural disasters.
All of these issues closely concern Russian business and Russia as a whole, which is why it is becoming an increasingly active participant in APEC forums.
