At our meeting in Singapore 12 months ago, it seemed to all of us that our region was coping better than most with the changes the end of the Cold War had brought to the world. Looking around us, we were able to compare our own progress in solving some of our region's remaining security problems with the uneven record elsewhere, in particular in East Europe and Africa. The emergence of a sense of economic interdependence was unmistakable. We could point to our region's remarkable progress in developing habits of consultation and cooperation, and contrast it with the tension and confrontation which marked dealings on security and economic issues in many other parts of the world.

Developments over the past year have only reinforced this perception. The pressure of international change remains relentless, bringing clear gains as well reverses for the world, but the trend of developments in the Asia Pacific continues, overall, to be highly favourable.

The conclusion of the long years of negotiation of the Uruguay Round has produced the most farreaching multilateral trade agreement ever concluded. The outcome has central significance for all of us here today, dependent as we are on trade for our economic well-being. Economic modelling suggests that total world exports will gain .by as much as US$755 billion by the end of the basic transition period in 2000, with an increase of some US$400 billion in economic activity. For our part, our estimates are that the outcome will eventually confer benefits on Australian exports -of over US$4 billion per year. The numbers are similarly dramatic for other economies of the region, with estimates for additional ASEAN exports projected at over US$38 billion a year, the most spectacular of which are projected increases in exports from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand of 30 per cent, 29 per cent and 28 per cent per year respectively.

This is not to suggest that we see the outcome as an unqualified success. We were disappointed, for example, that the results on agricultural reform were noticeably eroded, that greater liberalization could not be found in trade in services and that tariff reduction were patchy in many instances. But there can be no denying the extraordinary achievement of the Round overall.

In security terms, the threat of global nuclear war continues to recede. The international nuclear non proliferation regime has grown in strength with widening membership of the NPT, nuclear testing moratoriums in place in four of the five nuclear weapon states and further progress made in reversing the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union. The NPT continues to provide a vitally important norm for responsible nuclear behaviour, as well as a basis for nuclear disarmament and cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. There is no need for me to state the Treaty's importance for the interests of the Asia.

Pacific region. I would, however, like to underline the significance of next year's Conference to review and extend the NPT at the end of its initial 25 year period. Australia strongly supports the indefinite extension of the Treaty, and we hope that the Conference will make decisions that will ensure its continued success into the 21st Century and contribute to achieving universal membership.

The last twelve months have witnessed notable advances in the solution of some of the world's more enduring and fundamental security problems including in South Africa and the Middle East. But global security is still under challenge in many places. The nightmares of Bosnia, Somalia and now Rwanda serve to remind us how very unsafe the world still is for many of its peoples and how great has been the failure of the age of peace which was so confidently predicted to follow the Cold War. These problems serve to highlight the urgent need for the international community to find new ways to enhance security, including through rethinking the foundations of collective security responses, giving greater weight to preventive strategies than to corrective ones, and undertaking organisational reform, in particular in the UN.

As economic growth in the Asia Pacific region continues to outstrip that of the rest of the world, the last twelve months has been a time of remarkable strengthening of regional economic cooperation.

APEC has assumed major importance in ourjoint efforts to remove obstacles to regional growth. The Seattle leaders meeting last year and the decision to hold a further meeting in Bogor in November, confirmed political support for APECs objectives at the highest levels of its membership: the Seattle meeting itself was an important force exerting pressure for the Successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round negotiations.

We believe the time is coming when APEC will need to take on a new and even more significant role in economic integration ongoing beyond its present very useful roles as a body for OECD-style dialogue, and cooperation, and for reaching agreement on trade facilitation strategies going beyond what is achievable in the GATT or new WTO, in this respect to become the vehicle through which trade in the region will be made free. How this will occur in practice is, of course, as yet uncle ar but we are optimistic that the decisions in Bogor in November will at least get the process moving.

Solid progress is being made as well at the sub regional level, with the initiation of the AFTA trade liberalization process within ASEAN. We in Australia are following AFTA's progress with the closest interest and last April the East Asia Analytical Unit of my Department produced a major study of its implications. One of the study's recommendations is that we explore the proposal for a link between AFTA and our CER relationship with New Zealand, as suggested by Deputy Prime Minister Supachai of Thailand which would bring together, with a common free trade objective, two economic groupings of roughly equal size and great contemporary dynamism. We are continuing to discuss this idea with our ASEAN colleagues.

Another area of recent interest has centred on economic growth areas, and investigation of a number of proposals within the region is quickly gathering pace. We are attracted to this concept and we see opportunities for very fruitful cooperation, at the business level, between Australia and the other participants. There is, for example, particular interest in the possibility of involving the northern areas of Australia in markets opened up by the B.I.M.P. East ASEAN Growth Area proposal.

The record over the last year in pursuing effective regional security has been equally good. The central development has been, of course, our just-concluded inaugural meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, a truly significant event for the Asia Pacific region as a whole. Australia regards the Forum as the central element in the process of building a new sense of cooperative security in the region, lowering tensions, building trust and reducing the potential for conflict to occur.

There has been good cooperation among us already on a number of specific regional security issues, in particular on the Chemical Weapons Convention, Cambodia and the South China Sea. But potential problems remain. There are still competing territorial claims in the South China Sea. Conflict within Cambodia has escalated this year, with worrying implications for efforts to achieve social and economic reconstruction which is vital to the long-term security and stability of the Cambodian state. All of us here should be considering what action is necessary, jointly or individually, to ensure that the past tragedies of Cambodia are not repeated. North Korea still declines to satisfy legitimate international concern about the extent of its nuclear weapons the poten arsenal, and new uncertainties have arisen following the death of Kim II Sung: we all hope that the new process of dialogue initiated just before his death can be sustained. The domestic political situation in Myanmar, quite apart from its continuing to challenge some of the most basic principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, continues to exert a potentially destabilising influence on regional security.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Australia's formal dialogue status with ASEAN, and we are proud to have been the first such Dialogue Partner. The relationship has since grown in ways which were unimaginable to both sides in 1974. ASEAN has developed into a cohesive grouping enjoying a sustained period of extraordinary economic growth. Australia for its part has undergone fundamental process of restructuring, which has produced an economy able to match the world's best in its ability to provide competitive goods and services, and recognition of the importance of comprehensive engagement with the region. Trade between Australia and ASEAN has grown enormously, reaching almost US$10 billion in 1992/93, with Australian exports to ASEAN rising over the past twenty years from under six per cent of our total trade (valued then at only $270 million) to reach 14 per cent - or $6.4 billion - a year ago. Our imports from ASEAN over the same period have grown from 2.6 per cent of our total trade (worth then $80 million) to 8 per cent of the total (or $3.5 billion). In fact, ASEAN is now our second largest regional market, after North East Asia, having displaced Europe a year ago. And we are working together ever more effectively in areas such as telecommunications, environment, education and training.

Many challenge remain for us on the global and regional agendas. We will need to put in much hard work on the further development of APEC. There is a wide range of post-Uruguay Round action to complete, including establishment of the WTO and early ratification of national legislation to implement the outcomes of the Round. We will need to examine the scope for new areas of structural integration - economic and political - in the region, including, as / have mentioned, the possible AFTA - CER linkage, and accession to the Bali Treaty by non-ASEAN states. And we will need to look at the possibilities for even closer cooperation on such transnational issues as the environment, refugees and illicit drug production and trafficking.

I look forward with anticipation to our close collaboration on these and all the other issues in which Australia and the states of the region share ever-increasing common interests.