APEC official sees hope in free-trade plans at summit<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE (Agencies): A senior APEC official said yesterday he
\nis confident next month's APEC summit would help accelerate plans
\nto liberalize trade in the Asia-Pacific region despite
\nreservations by some members.<\/p>\n
Rusli Noor, executive director of the Asia-Pacific Economic
\nCooperation (APEC) secretariat, said the Nov. 15 summit in
\nIndonesia would attempt to reconcile the range of views on these
\nsubjects (trade and investment) among members.<\/p>\n
\"There are certainly some sorts of concerns (on the free trade
\nplan) among the members of APEC,\" he told a foreign
\ncorrespondents luncheon.<\/p>\n
Although it was not possible to assess the impact of these
\nconcerns now on the outcome of the summit, he said APEC's stated
\ngoals of trade liberalization could be eventually realized.<\/p>\n
\"In the end, I think I am optimistic that efforts to
\nliberalize trade in the region and enhance investment, which is
\nthe main objective of APEC, will bring more positive results,\"
\nNoor, who is based in Singapore, was quoted by Reuters as saying.<\/p>\n
APEC groups Australia, the United States, Canada, Mexico,
\nJapan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Brunei,
\nthe Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Papua New Guinea
\nand New Zealand. Chile will become a full member this month.<\/p>\n
China and Malaysia have said they would not accept a binding
\ntimetable for free trade, while a Japanese trade official said
\nalthough Tokyo basically supported freer trade, it is not ready
\nto blindly accept all proposed liberalization measures.<\/p>\n
Disputes<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Tetsuya Endo, ambassador for Asia-Pacific
\ncooperation and Japan's top official dealing with APEC, was
\nquoted by AFP as saying in Tokyo that plans by APEC to mediate in
\ntrade disputes between members would complement existing
\ninternational rules.<\/p>\n
However, he said that it was not yet clear if such plans would
\nbe included in the declaration to be issued at this year's summit
\nin Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"Dispute settlement might be taken up as one of the measures
\nin trade and investment facilitation,\" he said in an interview.<\/p>\n
\"But as far as I understand, what we are aiming at in APEC for
\ndispute settlement is not like that,\" he added, referring to a
\nJapanese newspaper report that APEC planned to develop its own
\ndispute-settlement procedures.<\/p>\n
Endo noted that settling trade disputes was \"basically in the
\nhands of the WTO\" -- the new World Trade Organization expected to
\nbe set up next year to succeed the General Agreement on Tariffs
\nand Trade (GATT).<\/p>\n
\"The role for APEC to play is to supplement or complement the
\nWTO, so therefore the dispute settlement mechanism in APEC should
\nnot be such a legalistic one,\" he said, stressing that
\n\"mediation\" was the preferred path.<\/p>\n
The Japanese official added that the five-year-old group also
\nmight be able to provide \"transparency\" to dispute-settlement
\nprocedures.<\/p>\n
China and Taiwan, two of the world's biggest trading nations
\nand both members of APEC, are still not members of the GATT,
\nmeaning that any trade disputes must be settled at bilateral
\nrather than multilateral levels.<\/p>\n
Moreover, some members of APEC have expressed fears that they
\ncould be adversely affected by the festering trade disputes
\nbetween the United States and Japan, the world's two biggest
\neconomies.<\/p>\n
Endo said the declaration on free trade being drafted for the
\nBogor summit had to accommodate cautious members such as China.<\/p>",
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