The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping will hold its annual summit meeting in Singapore this weekend, with the leaders of its 21 member-nations expected to attend. But do we really need yet another high-level global talk-fest?
In July we had the Group of Eight annual summit meeting of leaders from the world's allegedly main industrial nations. In September we had the Pittsburgh summit meeting of G20 national leaders to talk about finance, and an Istanbul meeting of G7 finance ministers also to talk about finance. This coincided with the U.N. General Assembly opening, which also demanded the presence of national leaders.
Meanwhile, the various meetings based on the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) also demanded the attendance of national leaders. Now we have APEC. When do these national leaders ever get down to the business of running their countries?