APEC vows united front to battle global slowdown

APEC vows united front to battle global slowdown

SUZHOU, China (Reuters): Asia-Pacific finance ministers
pledged on Sunday to press on with trade liberalization and
financial reforms to combat a global economic slowdown that has
sent markets reeling, but came up with no concrete measures.

A two-day meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation finance
ministers in China -- one of the few nations that has managed to
insulate itself from the economic chill -- ended with expressions
of optimism despite the gloom.

"We're confident that the leaders of APEC member economies can
link hands and mutually face the current economic slowdown,"
Chinese Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng told reporters.

"We can already roughly estimate when the slowdown will reach
a bottom and then recover, so our confidence is strengthening. I
feel that this APEC meeting was very helpful in allowing us to
exchange viewpoints and in strengthening confidence."

In a joint declaration at the end of the meeting, ministers
stressed the importance of timely action to deal with the
deteriorating world economy.

"We reaffirm our commitment to enhanced macroeconomic policy
dialogue and cooperation to tackle the current economic
difficulties, and to build a strong foundation for sustained and
broad-based growth in the APEC region and the rest of the world,"
it said.

"Trade and investment liberalization and facilitation will
increase investor confidence, attract capital to the region,
stimulate growth and reduce poverty," it said.

But the five-page declaration contained no concrete measures
to tackle the crisis and was void of details of how APEC
countries would work together to turn their economies around.

New Zealand Finance Minister Michael Cullen said there were
hopes of an upturn by the end of the year and that the current
gloom was a temporary slowdown rather than a crisis like the
economic collapse that hit Southeast Asia in 1997.

"I think there's a general feeling around the table that while
there are still significant risks, it was important to send the
message that we are not looking at any kind of systemic failure
like the Asian financial crisis," Cullen said.

Critics of APEC -- whose members span the economic and
ideological spectrum from industrial giants like the United
States and Japan to impoverished Papua New Guinea and Communist
Vietnam -- say the body is all talk and no action.

But Cullen said APEC's diversity was one of its strengths.

"I think it does have value, in part because it is varied," he
said. "It covers a significant cross-section of the world."

Cullen said one of the main benefits of APEC was that it gave
the opportunity for ministers to talk informally.

"There is the capacity for ministers to meet informally and to
gain confidence in each other, to understand each other's
position," he said.

APEC's relevance has declined since its early days a decade
ago, when member countries thought they were witnessing the dawn
of a "Pacific century" of economic success.

That dream is over, crushed by the 1997 Asian crisis, debt
problems in South America and the latest world slump.

But APEC retains significant economic clout -- its members
have a combined GDP of $18 trillion and account for 44 percent of
global trade.

China said the meeting agreed on the need for "equitable and
broad-based" growth -- a coded message to richer nations to
provide support to developing countries and do more to drag the
global economy out of the doldrums.

But Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the U.S. could not be
the sole engine of world growth and called on Japan to implement
the economic reforms needed to cure its economy.

"Let's get on with it" was O'Neill's blunt advice for the
Japanese. He is due to visit Tokyo this week.

The finance ministers will forward their declaration to APEC
heads of government, due to meet next month in Shanghai.

Trade ministers met in June and urged that APEC kick-start its
stalled trade liberalization agenda. The grouping upset business
leaders in 1999 when it abandoned efforts to fast-track tariff
cuts in a range of sectors.

APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Chile, Hong
Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New
Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia,
Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.