The role of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum can be expanded to deal with social and economic matters stemming from financial crises in Asia, Leonard Edwards, Canada's new ambassador to Japan, said Tuesday.
"I believe that APEC can and should be used by its members to come to grips with some of the social and economic aspects of the current difficulty, and assist governments to come to grips with social dislocation" such as unemployment and labor movements, Edwards Edwards told a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.
Although the current agenda for APEC is trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, the new ambassador said that whatever happens in the financial sector impacts other sectors, such as trade, as well as society. "These things have to be dealt with in a comprehensive way," Edwards said.