Asia, Americas urged to step up economic ties

Asia, Americas urged to step up economic ties

Bernice Han, Agence France-Presse, Bangkok

Asia and the Americas are competitors in the economic arena
but there is much the two sides can do together to push for free
trade and stimulate closer trading ties, Mexico's President
Vicente Fox said Monday.

"America and Asia are confronting important challenges and
opportunities to strengthen our trading and our investments," Fox
told more than 400 top business executives at a forum of the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit.

"We must strive to attract investors' attention so that each
makes the most out of their competitive advantages," Fox said.

He also called on the two sides to strengthen trading
relations through the "rapid lowering of trade barriers and
duties".

"Although there are marked differences among the countries and
economies of APEC, the developed and developing economies in this
area still maintain relatively high levels of protection in their
specific sectors," he said.

In his speech, Fox declared his country's goal to be the
gateway for Asia into the America's region and vowed to adopt a
pro-business policy to make Mexico an attractive place for Asian
investors.

"The enormous border we share with the United States offers
investors in Mexico an immediate access to the world's largest
market and at the same time it grants access going south," he
said.

"I invite you to consider us your allies and to explore
jointly the enormous opportunities we offer as a continent."

In his speech, Fox highlighted the agricultural and food
sectors as the key stumbling blocs to more free trade and urged
for a way to be found so that the World Trade Organization's
(WTO) multilateral trading process could move forward.

"The agricultural and food sectors are key to open markets and
are key to developing trade agreements throughout the world," he
said.

"According to our point of view, this will be the largest
challenge... to be able to move with WTO and to move ahead with
regional agreements and bilateral agreements."

Attempts by the WTO to set up a new multilateral trade accord
stumbled last month partly due to the huge agricultural subsidies
given to farmers in the developed world, a policy which less
developed economies said hurt their farm sectors badly.

Fox, who was in the Thai capital to attend the annual APEC
leaders' summit, called on the Pacific Rim grouping to reiterate
its support to the stalled talks, describing it as an important
step to break the impasse.

"Well... what we expect and basically would be our first
choice is that out of this meeting comes a very strong, very
concrete message towards bringing back the agenda of WTO to its
original purpose and to move along at the pace that is needed to
meet the deadline of year 2005," Fox said of Mexico's and fellow
APEC member Thailand's hopes.

"So we will be very glad if the outcome of this meeting is
precisely that one because we see it as urgent that a strong sign
comes from this meeting of leaders which represents close to 50
percent of world gross product," he said.

"It's a big challenge but if we work together, we can be back
on track and move ahead to achieve those objectives," he said.