APEC fast-track package to be finished soon

APEC fast-track package to be finished soon

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): APEC senior officials on Monday
agreed to complete their fast-track liberalization program by
November following tough negotiations and despite numerous
initial reservations on the package, an official said.

"Officials have agreed to complete the package by November.
That is an important breakthrough," said Edsel Custodio, the
Philippine chairman of APEC's trade and investment committee.

The committee, which is coordinating pledges to the early
voluntary sectoral liberalization package, "has presented a clear
picture of the status of play to the senior officials," told AFP.

"It gives them some ideas on where the gaps and shortfalls are
and how they will move. It is very concrete," he added.

Members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum are
racing against time to reconcile differences under the plan which
calls for the lowering of tariffs to between zero and five
percent in nine priority sectors from 1999.

The plan, part of a wider scheme to liberalize trade and
investment by 2020, is supposed to be ready in time for the APEC
summit in November in Kuala Lumpur.

Custodio also said that the coordinators for each sector would
communicate electronically to patch up any gaps.

"Most of the information is now in hand. So they can make some
decision how the packaging would be so everybody can come on
board. From now on, they will work hard to complete the package,"
he added.

The priority sectors include chemicals, energy, environment
goods and services, fish, forest products, gems and jewelry,
medical equipment and toys. A ninth priority sector,
telecommunications, has already been settled.

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

Russia, Vietnam and Peru are set to formally join the group in
November.

China urged earlier on the day APEC not to lose sight of its
goal of consensus as members race against time to draw up a
substantial and credible package of liberalization measures to be
implemented from next year.

The top priority of senior officials gathered in this east
Malaysian coast city for the second day was to consolidate
pledges to lower tariffs to between zero and five percent in nine
key sectors under an early voluntary liberalization plan.

But some delegates said some industrialized members were
pushing others, who are reeling from a 14-month old economic
crisis, into commitments hard to digest.

"I don't think any member has the authority to force the
others to do (things) the way they like," said China's ambassador
to APEC Wang Yusheng.

"Some members, they just emphasize that credibility is under
the full implementation of the nine sectors," he said.

"But they forget what their leaders instruct us to do," he
said, highlighting the voluntary nature of the liberalization
plan endorsed by APEC leaders at their last summit in Vancouver
in November last year.

Wang declined to say whether the United States -- which has in
the past successfully lobbied APEC members to approve agreements
on information technology and telecommunications -- was exerting
pressure.

"I don't know whether America is trying to make pressure on
others," he said. But "some members must feel pressure from
(other) members."