Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

This column features the views of participants in the Global Times Leader Roundtable, a business network aimed at providing a platform where executives from top multinational companies can share their views and insights in order to shed light on the latest social, political and economic trends affecting the Chinese market.

This year marks the 25th anniversary since the formation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), a real milestone in the history of the 21 member economies around the Asia-Pacific region.

The success of APEC is a testament to the wisdom of members' pragmatic approaches to advancing economic integration within the region. Economic development and lowering trade barriers have been the hallmarks of APEC's work in the past quarter century, serving the region well. APEC's benefits have been not only economic, however; they have spilled into the social and political spheres, too.

APEC's agenda is based on three broad areas or "pillars:" trade and investment liberalization, business facilitation, and economic and technical cooperation. Justifiably, there is great focus on economic growth, promoting investment in infrastructure and connectivity of the member economies. Significant work has been done in the areas of innovation, life sciences, supply and value chains, services, food security, and even into fields such as counterterrorism, illegal logging, electronic vehicles and data standards.

Without doubt, APEC has a broad and ambitious agenda that caters well to the priorities of mature economies, for urban and developed markets. However, there is a gap.

The majority of APEC's 21 member economies are classified as developing countries. One billion of their citizens live in rural areas; these have become APEC's forgotten one billion. Issues affecting them have only been addressed tangentially until now, be it through the capacity-building of developing countries, food security, market liberalization and opening-up of financial markets. There has been little or no direct focus on specific issues of rural development and poverty alleviation.

In the majority of APEC's developing economies, poverty is primarily a rural phenomenon with up to 90 percent of their poor living in rural areas. Despite the goal of APEC's Regional Economic Integration agenda to increase standards of living for all, the benefits of economic success in the region have by no means been shared equally. The differences in real consumption are widening between cities and rural areas in most member economies. Income inequality and lack of equal opportunities have persisted, leading to rising social and political tensions.

At the APEC leaders' meeting in Bali in October 2013, the present asymmetric agenda of APEC and the neglected needs and concerns of one billion people were discussed for the first time. And a new initiative was agreed.

APEC leaders are now looking at how the organization can promote rural development and poverty alleviation. A core group of countries volunteered to investigate how APEC can contribute and fill this gap within its agenda. These members include China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.

In 2014, China will host the APEC forum and has the opportunity to provide leadership for this important initiative to redress the imbalance. The group of four will seek to devise measures that deal expeditiously with not just economic integration of urban market operators, but also with the incorporation of rural areas and poverty alleviation into the development.

China has extensive experience in this field based on its record for improving living conditions in the countryside, investing in rural infrastructure and promoting equal basic services in urban and rural areas. The knowledge gleaned through the country's experience can be disseminated and is equally important for all 21 member economies.

The rebalancing of the priorities of APEC is warranted not only to deal with persistent and extreme poverty, but it is in line with the United Nation's post-2015 Development Agenda.

It remains to be seen what the core group of four economies will recommend, but its suggestions should be highly anticipated by all those who wish to see APEC prosper and fulfill its promise over the next 25 years.

The author is managing director of public affairs consultancy North Head. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn
Newspaper headline: China included in group to tackle rural poverty