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.