APEC to move quickly on crisis

APEC to move quickly on crisis

SINGAPORE (AP): Pacific Rim nations will act quickly over the next 10 months to produce a credible response to the economic crisis, while moving forward on trade liberalization, an official said Tuesday.

With a shorter-than-usual time frame between annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summits, "we are getting moving quickly on dealing with the social impacts of the crisis," said Timothy Hannah of New Zealand, the new executive director of the APEC Secretariat.

Building employment and taking care of the poor are very important, Hannah said in a briefing for diplomats and journalists about the work APEC will do before the leaders' meeting next September in Auckland.

For example, he said, Chile and Mexico have already initiated a program to help APEC member nations reform pension funds.

Hannah said that the attitude of leaders at the APEC meeting in Kuala Lumpur in November "proves that obvious protectionism has not taken hold, as might be expected when times are bad."

APEC's response to the crisis is "to focus on capacity building to support structural changes needed to strengthen markets and proceed to recovery."

He said there are no targets for reducing unemployment rates or raising certain numbers of people from poverty, but APEC countries would share ideas, work to reduce restrictions on trade, and ease the environment for cross-border business.

New Zealand, which chairs the group until next September, will push for progress on mutual recognition of food standards within APEC, he said. Also, priority will be given to small and medium businesses, seen as the major driving force in many Asia-Pacific economies.