APEC agenda set for trade and investment facilitation
APEC agenda set for trade and investment facilitation
By Vincent Lingga
BEIJING (JP): After the meaty subject of trade liberalization,
measures of trade and investment facilitation rank as the second
most important topic of discussions related to APEC cooperation
program.
The trade and investment facilitation agenda involves the most
important, comprehensive recommendations submitted by APEC's
Eminent Persons Group, the Pacific Business Forum and the Pacific
Economic Cooperation Council to the mid-November summit of APEC
leaders in Osaka.
The strongest argument for the recommendations is that trade
liberalization alone will not be able to significantly promote
economic cooperation.
As suggested by Mari Pangestu, a senior economist and a member
of the Indonesian delegation to the PECC meeting here, progress
in trade and investment facilitation can bring about mutual
benefits to APEC members much sooner than trade liberalization.
The recommendations call for measures, initiatives or
agreements to achieve greater consistency or mutual recognition
of policies as well as standards and procedures to facilitate
trade and investment flows to help reduce transaction costs and
technical obstacles.
Some of the needed measures are related to investment
principles, harmonization of standards and conformance with
customs procedures, transparency and discipline in the use of
anti-dumping measures, rules of origin, visa requirements and
trade (procurement) and competition policies.
APEC has started work on several of the measures such as the
adoption last year of non-binding investment principles which
cover transparency, non-discrimination, expropriation, settlement
of disputes, transfer of funds, capital movements, incentives,
national treatment and performance requirements.
Several of the World Trade Organization's agreements have also
covered the issue. Among them are the agreements on Trade Related
Investment Measures, Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights and Anti-Dumping Measures.
Divergences
However, as PECC asserts in its recommendations to APEC
leaders, wide divergences in domestic regulations, policies and
administrative procedures have been raising the costs of trade
and investment and other economic transactions among APEC member
economies.
"These problems, in addition to traditional trade barriers,
are now strategic obstacles to the mutually beneficial economic
integration of the Asia-Pacific region," a PECC statement points
out.
The APEC Eminent Persons Group points out in its third report
to APEC leaders that periodic abuse of the anti-dumping
instrument has been threatening to close some of the markets that
APEC is trying to open.
"Almost 75 percent of all anti-dumping actions notified to the
WTO involve APEC members and three of the four principal users of
anti-dumping actions are in APEC," the Eminent Persons Group
says.
APEC therefore has a special responsibility to address the
issue, otherwise it could affect international transactions and
consequently hinder growth, the group notes.
The group also sees competition policy as highly salient to
APEC because, besides anti-dumping measures, such practices as
monopoly, abuse of market power and other abusive business
practices are the main cause of major trade disputes between APEC
members.
The eminent persons group therefore calls for urgent measures
of trade and investment facilitation in view of the fact that
despite the commitment of its leaders to creating a community of
Asia-Pacific economies, several of APEC members are involved in
so many trade disputes.
The Pacific Business Forum, in its latest report to APEC
leaders entitled The Osaka Action Plan: A road map to realizing
the APEC Vision, goes farther in recommending more concrete
measures to facilitate trade and investment.
The forum, which was set up at the first APEC summit in
Seattle in November, 1993, calls for a one-stop investment agency
in each member, multi-entry business visa, easier procedures for
obtaining business residency visas, simplification and
harmonization of customs procedures and of government policies in
respect to product standards and procurements.
"Today, investment flows have joined trade flows to become the
driving forces behind regional growth. But restrictive barriers
such as lack of clearly defined and enforceable laws and
regulations in a number of APEC economies are inhibiting regional
growth and cooperation," the forum points out.
The eminent persons groups considers competition policy so
vital that a failure to adopt such a policy could frustrate the
basic objective of free, open trade and investment as stipulated
in the Bogor Declaration of APEC leaders last November.