The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum completed its first ten years in 1999. It is appropriate to pause and look back at its evolution over this period, and look forward to assess its future role in the multilateral world of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This paper attempts both of these tasks from a New Zealand perspective. The factors and forces behind regionalism, its points of confluence and conflict with multilateralism, and its future role in a globalised international economy are all addressed in this paper. How the forces of regionalism are shaping up in the Asia-Pacific region, and how New Zealand - a small open economy - is linking itself into it are anlysed to put New Zealand's recent economic reforms in an international perspective. To what extent New Zealand and other countries in the Asia-Pacific area can learn and benefit from the experiences of one another is brought into sharper focus in the paper. Professor Srikanta Chatterjee is a professor of international economics at Massey University in New Zealand. A native of India, Professor Chatterjee studied economics at the Universities of Calcutta, India, and Surrey and London, England, receiving his Ph D from the London School of Economics. Besides New Zealand, Professor Chatterjee has been on the full time faculty in universities in India, U.K., Australia, Japan and Fiji. He has also been on the visiting faculty in Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Italy, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mauritius, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland and Vietnam. In 1997, Professor Chatterjee was a Japan Foundation Fellow at the Tokyo Keizai University, and, in 1998, he spent a semester at the Kyoto Ritsumeikan University as a New Zealand Asia 2000 Foundation Visiting Professor of Asia-Pacific Studies. Currently a Fulbright Travelling Fellow, Professor Chatterjee is visiting Berkeley, and attending a conference in San Diego before going on give lectures at the University of Colima in Mexico. Professor Chatterjee's teaching and research interests include international economics, international business, the Asia-Pacific economies, inequality and income distribution, and the economics of the household.

The history of Indian power sector is abound with myths like those that envisioned the big projects as "temples of modern India" some fifty years ago, to the recent characterization of the sector as a "millstone" hindering economic development. The dynamics of the sector provides a classic case of the debate on the role of state versus that of the market in developing economies. Lately, economic realism has led to reforms for developing competitive electricity market. Under the changing dynamics, long-term policy needs to be based on some robust insights. In this talk, the speaker will present an analysis of Indian power sector under different scenarios that take into account the "success" of reforms, technology transfer regimes and local and global environmental concerns. Some insights will be offered vis-?-vis the well known debates on fossil energy options (coal versus gas), decentralization versus centralization, renewable and nuclear technologies, and the extent of linkage between local and global environmental policies. Discussion will also address the status of reforms and trends. P.R. Shukla is a Professor with the Public Systems Group at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He obtained Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1979. He has been a consultant to the Government of India and several national and international organizations. He is a leading expert on developing country policy, especially in the areas of energy, environment and technology. He is a lead author of several international reports of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). He is a co-author of eight books and numerous publications in reputed international journals and invited articles in books and proceedings.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) which is the country's market regulator has recently released its draft rules on corporate governance. Mr. L.K. Singhvi will discuss the SEBI draft. The Securities and Exchange Board of India is India's primary regulator of financial markets. A member of the Indian Civil Service, Mr. Singhvi heads SEBI's Investigation, Enforcement and Surveillance Departments and its Derivative and Venture Capital Fund Departments. Prior to joining SEBI, he held positions in the Indian Revenue Service and the Income Tax Department. When India began reform in 1991, Mr.Singhvi undertook the important assignment of the Director of Enforcement of Foreign Exchange Regulations and was also a member of the committee for dilution of Foreign Exchange Regulations. Mr. Singhvi has participated both in national and international conferences especially in the area of capital market and is also an active member of the Asia Pacific Regional Committee on Enforcement.

Why do some regions seem more innovative then other regions? What is the secret of successful regions? Based on research in several innovative regions, Collaborative Economics has identified some of the factors that shape success. Doug Henton, President of Collaborative Economics based in Palo Alto will present results from the 2000 Index of Silicon Valley and the results of a recent study on Innovative Regions which analyzes trends in several American regions including Austin, Route 128, Northern Virginia, San Diego as well as Silicon Valley. Doug founded Collaborative Economics in July 1993 after a decade as assistant director of SRI International's Center for Economic Competitiveness. At SRI, Doug directed local strategy projects in diverse regions, including Tampa, Florida; Southern California; and Austin, Texas. He led major state-level strategy development projects in Arizona, Florida, and California, and provided consulting assistance to the President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, the Western Governors Association, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Appalachian Regional Commission. Internationally, Doug directed major projects on the economic future of Hong Kong, the technopolis strategy in Japan, and regional development in China. Doug holds a bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Yale University and a master of public policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Pieter P. Bottelier recently completed a 28-year tenure at the World Bank. He served in various senior managerial and advisory capacities for programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America. His most recent positions were, until December l998, Senior Advisor to the Vice President, East Asia and Pacific Region, and Chief of the World Bank's Resident Mission in Beijing (1993-97). He now teaches at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, and is associated with the Center for Strategic International Studies in Washington DC. He is the author of many articles on China. He studied economics and banking at the University of Amsterdam and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The fact that software companies can be started with little more than a few programmers and their PCs has generated great interest in countries around the world looking for ways to get into the high-tech boom as part of their economic development strategy. Avron Barr and Shirley Tessler have been studying the Korean software industry in the context of their ongoing research on the worldwide software industry, looking for strategies that might help Korea develop her competitive strengths. They have looked at all aspects of the industry: software education, financial institutions and new business creation, habitat for startup companies, the domestic market, and global niche strategies. A summary of their findings and some possible recommendations will be discussed. Since 1994, Avron Barr and Shirley Tessler have been conducting SCIP's study of the worldwide software industry with Professor William F. Miller. They are also the principals of Aldo Ventures, Inc., a strategy consulting firm for software organizations. Avron studied Computer Science at Stanford, edited the four-volume Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, co-founded a Silicon Valley software start-up in 1981, and served as Marketing Director for a software publisher. Shirley also studied Computer Science at Stanford, and has an MBA from Wharton. She spent 16 years in corporate finance and M&A before joining Aldo Ventures in 1991. Together they have consulted with dozens of software companies and IT shops on the commercial application of advanced software technology and on the software industry.

Foreign-born engineers are a significant and fast growing presence in Silicon Valley. This talk will examine how first generation Chinese and Indian immigrants--who represent one-third of the engineering workforce in the region--have integrated into the local economy while simultaneously building long-distance linkages to regions in Asia. AnnaLee Saxenian is a Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley and an internationally recognized expert on regional economic development and the information technology sector. Her current research examines the contributions of skilled immigrants to Silicon Valley and their growing ties to regions in Asia. Her recent publications include Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. She has written extensively about innovation and regional development, urbanization, and the organization of labor markets in the San Francisco Bay Area. Saxenian is the Gordon Cain Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research for the 1999-2000 academic year. She holds a Doctorate in Political Science from MIT, a Master's degree in Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley, and a BA in Economics from Williams College in Massachusetts.