APEC transport ministers seek to ride growth

APEC transport ministers seek to ride growth

VICTORIA, British Columbia (Reuter): Anticipating a boom in passenger and freight traffic, transportation ministers and industry experts from Asia-Pacific countries met on Monday to discuss how to ensure transport links keep pace with economic and trade growth.

The session was the first part of two-day meeting in Victoria of ministers from the 18 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which includes the United States, China and Japan.

They were joined by 400 delegates from the private sector including officials from Boeing Co., United Parcel Service of America Inc., shipping lines and the International Air Transport Association.

The Asia-Pacific region is expected to account for half the world's economic growth over the next decade and APEC countries have set a goal of achieving free trade among themselves in the next century. But recent growth was already taxing the transportation network, officials said.

"Even now, increased freight and passenger traffic, combined with changing routing patterns and larger vessels, are straining capacity and causing congestion," Canadian Transport Minister David Collenette told the meeting.

One of APEC's main drives is to free trade among member economies starting in 2010 for developed countries, and efficient transportation links were seen as an important way to underpin that effort, officials said.

"The objective is trade growth. The means are the improvement in capacity and efficiency of the transportation systems," said Graham Day, a Canadian shipping executive who was formerly chairman of Cadbury Schweppes Plc and British Aerospace Plc.

Several speakers raised concern about congestion, the need to expand transport facilities such as air and seaports and potential benefits from harmonizing customs and transport regulations among APEC countries.

For example, the International Air Transportation Association, which represents the world's airlines, said international air traffic in the Asia-Pacific region was expected to grow 7.4 percent a year until 2010 compared to a 4.4 percent growth rate in the rest of the world. Air cargo traffic was also expected to grow rapidly.

To meet that demand, airlines would probably need to double the number of flights within in the next 10 years, IATA official John Meredith said.

That would require huge investments in new airplanes, airport capacity and air traffic control systems as well as efforts to alleviate regulatory bottlenecks such as immigration and customs delays, he said.

"We regard the expansion of infrastructure in the Asia/Pacific area of utmost importance," Meredith said in a text of his remarks to the APEC meeting.

Officials also highlighted a need for investment in improved road networks, urban transit, intermodal freight facilities and sea ports.

The ministers were scheduled to meet on their own on Tuesday and discuss priorities for further work in the run-up to a summit of APEC leaders in Vancouver in November.

APEC groups 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 States.