By Dr. Lee-Jay Cho
Chairman, Northeast Asia Economic Forum and Senior Adviser, East-West Center, Hawaii
The Northeast Asia Economic Forum has extended its bridges to North America by holding its eleventh meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, on 6-8 March 2002. approximately 80% of Alaska's economic exchanges and trade are with Northeast Asia, and during the winter months the two continents are linked by a natural ice bridge.
The eleventh Forum was hosted by the Instituted of the North, founded by Walter Hickel, former Governor of Alaska and former US Secretary of the Interior. The meeting was cosponsored by the East-West Center (based in Hawaii), Japan's Committee for the Promotion of an Asian Energy Community, and Japan's National Institute for Research Advancement (NIRA) in cooperation with the Kanamori Committee, Japan, and the Forum's national committees in China, ROK, Mongolia and North America, as well as the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) and the US West Coast-Russian Far East Ad Hoc Working Group.
The agenda focused on the supply and use of energy resource's the energy session examined issues of government involvement in large energy projects, the future of Northeast Asia's natural gas markets and pipelines, and China's perspective on trade in natural gas. The debate on regional cooperation in this critical sector highlighted its serious implications for regional economic development, security, stability, and environmental protection. Another session was devoted to environmentally friendly uses of energy. The conference also featured a special working group on stranded energy consumers, with a roundtable on the efficient supply of energy for off-met consumers, including on the efficient supply of energy for off-net consumers, including remote settlements in parts of Alaska and its neighbor Checotah in the Russian Far East.
The Experts' Working Group on the Northeast Asian Development Bank was chaired by Dr. Nam Duck-Woo, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea. The discussion focused on financing needs and mobilization of capital for infrastructure development. The meeting strongly supported the proposal to create a Northeast Asian Development Bank because of inadequate capital and the low priority assigned to the region by existing multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
The session on information technology and telecommunications focused on the need to keep abreast of revolutionary advancements in this field and its effects on functional cooperation in Northeast Asia, whether in energy, transportation and logistics, or development financing.
Following the substantive deliberations in each session and working group, the meeting concluded with the Anchorage Affimation, which endorses the Forum's efforts to bridge the Pacific by including North America, and which resolves to maintain the Forum's momentum toward a new level of regional economic cooperation, stability, and peace.