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."