Welcome

The APEC Study Center of the College of Business, City University of Hong Kong welcomes you to visit the website and join the forthcoming conference. The conference, whose theme is "Asia Pacific Economies: Multilateral vs Bilateral Relationships", will be held in the City University of Hong Kong on May 19 - 21, 2004 (Wednesday to Friday). Scholars are encouraged to submit abstracts and papers related to all APEC-concerned areas, macroeconomics and sector studies.

The APEC is still a young and vibrant organization, and despite its multilateral nature of development, growth and assistance, a number of individual APEC economies in recent years have engaged in bilateral economic relationships. Scholars, professionals and governments have lingered on the debate whether the bilateral nature would replace the multilateral nature of relationships among APEC and non-APEC economies. On the contrary, while the multilateral nature of APEC cooperation is in progress, it would be to the region's advantage if individual member economies establish bilateral relationships among themselves. This provides a greater mutual understanding between the bilateral members, helps to consolidate and deepen economic development, and ultimately promotes regional growth, prosperity and stability. Bilateral relationships are the stepping stones to, or the building blocks of, multilateral relationships in the Asia Pacific region.

Over the years, APEC has brought to light a number of useful topics of concern. Capacity building, trade liberalization, financial cooperation and such industries as transport and telecommunication are clear examples. It is time to have an opportunity to examine these APEC-related issues through the work of various scholars. Their work could give insights to the next stage of cooperation and development.

The May 2004 conference will be the "inaugural" conference organized by the APEC Study Center of the College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, which was established in 1999 with the aim to promote and disseminate APEC-related issues. The first-day of the three-day conference will be devoted to talks and speeches by professional, business and government speakers, while the last two days will be entire devoted to scholarly presentations.

The government of the Hong Kong SAR aims to develop Hong Kong as Asia's world city. An international conference with the objective to examine Asia Pacific issues and relationships will be an advantage and gain not only to those participated but all the APEC member economies will be one step closer among themselves.

I welcome scholars to submit their research papers for presentation, and non-scholars to participate. I look forward to see you all in the May 2004 conference in Hong Kong.

Dr. Kui-Wai Li
Conference Director