The consideration of guidelines by 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is in response to concerns expressed by APEC leaders last year over the proliferation of so-called Man-Portable Air Defense Systems, or Manpads.

Manpads are surface-to-air missile systems specially designed to be carried and fired by a single individual. Manpads are portable and easily concealed, yet capable of potentially catastrophic destruction.

At the APEC summit in Bangkok in October, the leaders agreed to "strengthen our joint efforts to curb terrorist threats against mass transportation and confront the threat posed by terrorists' acquisition of manpads against international aviation."

APEC officials meeting in Singapore next week are expected to follow up on the Bangkok commitment and consider adopting guidelines for manpad export controls as part of group's larger objective of fighting transnational terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

"One of the ideas that we have been talking about within APEC is perhaps all APEC members might be able to adhere to the principles and guidelines that the Wassenaar Arrangement had worked out on manpads," Lauren Moriarty, US Ambassador for APEC, told AFP in an interview.

The Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) is an agreement among 33 nations on common standards for export controls for both conventional weapons and sensitive goods and technologies used for both military and commercial purposes.

The WA's export controls of manpads was agreed upon in December last year by nations that included seven APEC members -- the United States, Japan, Russia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea.

APEC members not signatories to the WA may wish to agree unilaterally that they like to adhere to the same guidelines, Moriarty said.

"You will then at the very least have a political statement that everybody in our part of the world has taken this seriously and is going to try to meet the international standards that were set out in best practices by the Wassenaar Arrangement," she said.

"In practical terms, it then starts to set out a set of actions which individual economies can take to help better protect themselves from an attack and perhaps you will find things among the guidelines which we might want to work collectively or build capacity, Moriarty added.

By adopting the WA standards devised by experts, APEC also "need not reinvent the wheel," she said.

The Singapore meeting will be held on July 30-31.

Under the WA arrangements, national export controls apply to international transfer or retransfer of Manpads, including complete systems, components, spare parts, models, training systems and simulators.

Exporting governments under the protocol are obliged to report transfers of Manpads, with decisions to authorise exports taking into account potential for diversion or misuse in the recipient country.

There are also provisions for storage of manpads to be subject to the highest standards of security, as well as criminal sanctions for infringements of export control legislation.

An APEC working group on air transportation security agreed at a meeting recently that business and government coordination was essential to prevent Manpads proliferation in the region.

"The threat that a missile might destroy a jetliner is real and APEC has an important role to play in preventing the proliferation of Manpads," the group said.

APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

WAR.WIRE