APEC expected to lead global trade liberalization

APEC expected to lead global trade liberalization

By Vincent Lingga

BEIJING (JP): Asia-Pacific businesspeople, scholars and
officials associated with the Pacific Economic Cooperation
Council (PECC) asked their governments yesterday to lead global
trade liberalization.

It is most imperative for the leaders of the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to adopt ambitious, but
realistic, action plans for trade and investment liberalization
in the region, PECC asserted in a statement issued at the end of
its three-day 11th General Meeting here yesterday.

The PECC, a non-governmental organization which was set up in
1980 to promote cooperation in the Pacific Rim, issued the
Beijing Statement to supplement the recommendations it submitted
to APEC senior officials in Sapporo, Japan, in July.

"By taking unilateral actions to accelerate trade
liberalization beyond the requirements of the World Trade
Organization (Uruguay Round commitments) APEC will be in a
stronger position to take the lead in the global dismantling of
obstacles to trade and investment," the statement said.

The PECC considers it crucial for the forthcoming APEC summit
in Osaka to adopt an action agenda for concerted unilateral trade
liberalization in order to maintain the momentum of the six-year
APEC cooperation process.

The organization, however, cautioned that APEC should continue
to uphold the guiding principles of open regionalism, equality
and evolution.

It noted that APEC could learn much from economic cooperation
experiences elsewhere, but the concepts cannot be simply
transplanted into the dynamic and diverse Asia-Pacific.

"We want APEC to be a new model of regional integration, quite
different from the European Union and the North American Free
Trade Agreement," PECC said in the Beijing Statement entitled
Open regionalism for global prosperity.

The Asia-Pacific model of regional cooperation will show that
it is possible to strike a harmonious balance among the
objectives of strengthening an open multilateral trading system,
regional trade liberalization, facilitation and development
cooperation, the statement noted.

PECC reaffirmed its suggestion that the action plans of APEC
governments need to go well beyond the elimination of tariffs and
quotas. They must also address obstacles to international trade
and investment arising from differences in domestic policies and
regulatory systems or product standards, as well as lack of
transparency.

The dangers of the insidious growth of non-tariff barriers to
trade and investment was pinpointed by Singapore's Minister of
State for Trade and Industry and Communications Goh Chee Wee who
addressed the PECC morning session yesterday.

Goh cited high technical standards on imports, anti-dumping
measures, labor standards and domestic policies, such as
government procurement practices, as some of the new barriers
being encountered in international trade.

"Worse still, some countries have resorted to bilateral
measures against multilateral norms and mechanisms," Goh said,
cautioning that such actions may give others the impression that
there are two sets of rules, one for the big players and another
more onerous one for everyone else.

Goh called on APEC to act quickly and decisively to implement
comprehensive trade liberalization and facilitation as a model
for the outside world.

Jusuf Wanandi, chief of the Indonesian delegation to the PECC
meeting, concurred that a positive example would enable APEC to
initiate a new round of multilateral trade negotiations at the
inaugural ministerial meeting of the WTO in Singapore in
December, 1996.

The PECC also sees further strengthening of APEC's non-binding
investment principles as vital for allowing Asia-Pacific
governments to take the lead in devising multilateral principles
to promote international investments.

APEC, launched in Canberra in November 1989, groups 18
economies which together have a combined gross national product
of about US$13.5 trillion. It accounts for 46 percent of the
world's trade and 56 percent of the world's output.

The PECC represents 22 member economies, of which Australia,
Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South
Korea, Malaysia. Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the
Philippines, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand and the United
States are also members of APEC.

Peru, Vietnam, Russia and the South Pacific Forum are the
other four members of the PECC.

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