APEC may set course for trade liberalization

APEC may set course for trade liberalization

CANBERRA (AFP): Leaders of the 18 Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) countries are likely, but not certain, to set
a course for regional trade liberalization at their November
conference, Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said
yesterday.

But details of any agreement, including suggested moves to
turn the forum into a trading bloc -- preferential or otherwise
-- would take years to evolve and mattered little at the moment,
he said.

"It is simply not an issue which needs to be finally resolved
at this stage," he told reporters here.

Evans was speaking at a news conference attended by Japanese
correspondents and AFP on the eve of his departure for the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) annual meeting, at
which he will be a dialogue partner.

He said Canberra was attracted by ASEAN's proposal last year
that Australia and New Zealand, joined by a formal economic
relationship, should join the ASEAN Free Trade Association (AFTA)
in expanded market, which would be "a healthy development for the
achievement of free trade."

The AFTA plan, which would bring together two economic
groupings of equivalent size, was still in an early stage,
requiring detailed discussion over a long period and may be
discussed in the corridors of the ASEAN meeting.

The six ASEAN nations -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- are APEC members along
with Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia,
Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, Taiwan, the
United States and, later this year, Chile.

Bloc

Recent reports have suggested the APEC leaders are to consider
a plan to turn the forum into a powerful new trading bloc with
some similarities to the original European Common Market.

The proposal, which has the potential to turn APEC into a
discriminatory trade bloc, was prepared by APEC's Eminent Persons
Group of government appointed politicians and economists
responsible for developing a blueprint for its future.

Evans said the proposal dealt with the final shape of a
process that had not yet begun and which would take many years to
come to fruition.

As a result of agreement at the Seattle leaders' summit last
year, APEC was working on its trade facilitation agenda, which
includes measures such as mutual recognition of qualifications,
investment codes and guidelines producing common rules.

"That is all in place and that work is starting to be done
very effectively and in a period of time we'll start to get
results," Evans said.

But the move within APEC to get regional free trade had been
discussed and was on the agenda for further discussion by the
APEC leaders' meeting in Indonesia.

"I think that at the November leaders' meeting, with input
from the ministers and input from the Emminent Persons Group,
there is a good chance, not absolutely certain, that APEC will
move to defining some kind of free-trade objective," he said.