APEC forum vows to reduce economic gap

APEC forum vows to reduce economic gap

CEBU, Philippines (Agencies): The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum pledged yesterday not just to remove trade barriers but also to work towards narrowing the economic gap among members, officials said.

"It is embedded in the APEC principles to reduce disparity in the region," Philippine Assistant Secretary for Trade Policy Edsel Custodio told reporters during a four-day meeting of APEC senior officials in the central Philippine city of Cebu.

"Economic and technical cooperation is an equally important pillar of APEC, as important as trade and investment liberalization," Chinese delegation leader Wang Yusheng was quoted by Reuters as saying.

APEC is potentially the world's biggest and wealthiest regional trade grouping. But it is also the most diverse, with advanced economies such as Japan and the United States alongside less developed countries such as Papua New Guinea.

"We talk aloud about trade and investment liberalization but quite a lot of members remain underdeveloped," Wang added.

The forum comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United

Fund

The forum also approved yesterday guidelines for selection and procedures for disbursement of a 10-billion-yen (US$100 million) fund to be made available by the Japanese government to the group.

Antonio Basilio, deputy chairman of APEC's Senior Officials Meeting, was quoted by UPI as saying that the grant has been earmarked for trade and investment liberalization and facilitation projects.

It was initially proposed by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in the third APEC Summit in Osaka, Japan and has since been informally called the Murayama Fund.

The seven-year-old APEC hopes to completely open trade and investments in the region by the year 2010 for industrialized economies and 2020 for developing economies.

Basilio said the fund would be handled by the APEC secretariat and applications for its use would be given to them. The applications would then be forwarded to the budget and administration committee, which has been tasked to endorse projects worthy of funding to the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM).

The SOM in Cebu, 350 miles (560 km) south of Manila, is the second of four such meetings scheduled before the 4th APEC Summit to be held in November at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone just north of Manila.

Earlier, the Japanese delegation said the entire $100 million would not be given to APEC in bulk. It would be disbursed in tranches, depending on the projects approved by the group.

The delegation said most likely to be funded first is a seminar on customs evaluation, valued at $300,000. The date and venue have not been finalized.

Prior to the SOM, related meetings were held since May 17 by the Sub-committee on Customs and Procedures, Intellectual Property Rights Group, Experts Group Meeting on Mutual Recognition Arrangements on Food Products and Sub-committee on Standards and Conformance.

The Sub-committee on Customs Procedures concluded with the submission by Canada and Japan of a framework for technical assistance and human resources development. The framework is expected to enable the sub-committee to complete a nine-point action plan that includes the harmonization of tariff structure, transparency of customs procedures and protection of intellectual property rights.

The sub-committee has completed a summary report of the implementation schedules for each economy based on facilitation, accountability, consistency, transparency and simplification. It has surpassed all other sub-committees and experts groups in the accomplishment of tasks, mainly because it has spent more time with lengthy discussions.

The Asia-Pacific region, with a combined output of $13 trillion, makes up about 56 percent of the world's gross domestic product and more than 46 percent of the world's total merchandise trade. About 40 percent of the world's population live in the region, which occupies 30 percent of the world's land area.