The Japanese origins of PAFTAD: the beginning of an Asian Pacific economic community

Abstract

The Pacific Trade and Development (PAFTAD) forum owes much of its existence to the enthusiasm and vision of three Japanese – Kiyoshi Kojima, Saburo Okita and Takeo Miki – an academic, a bureaucrat and a politician. This paper outlines the evolution of PAFTAD and shows how Japan’s thinking on regional cooperation was driven by two main forces – the formation of the EEC, which was seen as excluding trade from the region, and a desire to boost growth in developing Asian countries. There had been very little regional collaboration on Pacific economic policy before PAFTAD was established in 1968 and academics tended to know more about Europe or the Atlantic than each other’s countries. The forum proved to be an important and durable means of exchanging ideas and helped lay the foundations for the establishment of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.