APEC secretariat: Sea row not a concern in meetings

MANILA, Philippines — Even as individual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation member economies are embroiled in sea disputes, maritime security is not a concern in APEC meetings in Manila, the forum's secretariat said Monday.

Alan Bollard, executive director of the APEC Secretariat, said APEC meetings are not the proper forum for security issues as the bloc is primarily concerned about economic exchanges.

"APEC is about economic methods, only about economic methods. We are not like ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) that would include security issues," Bollard said in a press briefing at the World Trade Center in Pasay City.

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"Formally, around APEC tables, those things get discussed, and they are not part of formal APEC agenda. Personally, I'm not hearing about concerns like that on the trade side," he added.

He said leaders and top officials traditionally treat APEC as an economic forum and work to "get trade up."

"We are confident that it will continue this year," Bollard said.

Bollard said leaders of the 21 APEC member economies, however, can meet in private and discuss areas of common concern.

The APEC Secretariat, however, is not privy to security talks, which are expected to be stirred by the recent attacks in Paris as the longstanding row over the South China Sea.

China, which has transformed reefs in maritime areas claimed by the Philippines into man-made islands, earlier requested the APEC host country not to raise the dispute at the meetings in Manila.

Besides China and the Philippines, APEC member economies Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei are claimants to the Spratly islands in the South China Sea.