FEALAC UPDATE
 

As preparations for the Forum for East Asia-Latin-America Cooperation (FEALAC) meetings to be held in Manila and Tagaytay City from 28-31 January 2004 go into full gear, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Delia Domingo-Albert commended the wholehearted efforts of the DFA and the other government agencies involved in organizing what the Secretary describes as one of the year’s major diplomatic events.

The Secretary further said that the country’s hosting of FEALAC’s sixth senior officials’ meeting and second foreign ministers’ meeting is evidence of the Philippines’ key role in the organization.  “The Philippines continues to take the lead hand in ensuring the organization’s continuing growth and development and ensure adherence to its vision of bridging the cultural and economic gap between the regions of East Asia and Latin America,” the Secretary added.

Right now, FEALAC’s economic vision is to eventually contribute to a fairer global trading system and to a more equitable and responsive international financial architecture.

FEALAC is an inter-hemispheric dialogue composed of 32 countries from the East Asian and Latin American Regions.  It is a young organization relative to other international groupings and the taking an active role in a nascent organization is in itself a challenge to Philippine leadership in the community of nations.  “The Philippines aims to be equal to the task and has in fact shown this by taking the pro-active approach to host the 2004 meetings,” Secretary Albert said.

The Secretary emphasized that as a new international organization, the Philippines is helping in the shaping and firming up of FEALAC’s outlook and vision to make it an important, dynamic and productive association of nations.  “We acknowledge that its not so much the immediately tangible benefits that the participating countries will derive out of the conference as the intangible gain of promoting understanding among peoples of diverse cultural and economic backgrounds and experiences that may lead to more concrete benefits in the
future,” she added.

FEALAC brings together two of the most dynamic regions in the world economy and the great potential of expanding economic ties between and among the 32 countries of FEALAC has given an impetus to current trade prospects between the 2 regions.  Latin America, which is home to more than 500 million consumers is a
relatively untapped market for the Philippines, in terms of international trade and even tourism.

Aside from the pursuing economic cooperation, FEALAC also aims to foster educational cooperation and cultural exchange between the 2 regions.  At present, noteworthy projects of FEALAC in these fields are the study on the negative impact of the El Nino phenomenon and the establishment of the Philippine Academic Consortium for Latin American Studies (PACLAS) to maximize the ties of Philippine Academic institutions with their counterparts in Latin America.  With this, the Philippines’ role in the organization is enhanced and
given new meaning by virtue of its geographic location and historical heritage.  The country is strategically situated between the two regions, and though an Asian country, the Philippines shares many things in common with the Latin American countries.  END.