APEC to firm up free trade policy: Senior official
APEC to firm up free trade policy: Senior official
MANILA (AFP): Senior officials from the 18-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum meet in the southern Philippines next week to firm up commitments to free trade, a senior official said yesterday.
The senior officials' meeting in the city of Davao is the third of five such meetings in a run-up to the November APEC leaders' summit in Subic Bay, north of Manila.
Members of APEC, an Pacific Rim forum, agreed in Christchurch, New Zealand, last month to firm up commitments to free trade and investment before December's World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Singapore.
"APEC is determined to build on the Uruguay round's success by participating in the global trading system based on open and market-oriented policies," Federico Macaranas, chairman of the APEC senior officials meeting, told reporters.
Macaranas said nine members had made "additional improvements" in their individual action plans towards the APEC goal of free trade and investment in APEC developing economies by 2020 and developed economies by 2010.
He said that since July, most of the 18 member economies had made offers to liberalize trade services specified under the WTO. Nine members had committed to liberalize maritime transport, while 11 submitted proposals for air transport, 12 in financial services and 16 in telecommunications, Macaranas said.
An APEC statement said that among the economies that had submitted improved individual action plans were Australia, China, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
A contentious Information Technology Agreement proposed by the U.S. at the Christchurch meeting would also be discussed in Davao, officials said.
The technology proposal called for tariffs to be erased by 2000 on products ranging from computers to cellular telephones.
This was initially opposed by a number of Asian economies.
Bilateral talks will figure prominently in the APEC meeting, amid staunch opposition from Japan on preferential tariffs given by Indonesia to an automobile company partly owned by one of President Soeharto's sons, and a recently concluded U.S.-Japan accord on semiconductors.
The officials will also discuss the issue of new members, although a final decision will only be made at the November leaders summit, Macaranas said.
Ten countries, including Vietnam, Russia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, have submitted formal applications for membership of APEC when a current moratorium on new members expires at the end of this year.
A series of committee and experts' group meetings on food products, economic and technical cooperation, product standards and conformance, economic outlook and trade and investment will begin Thursday ahead of next week's senior officials' meeting.
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.