Australia, Singapore agree on APEC free trade aims
Australia, Singapore agree on APEC free trade aims
CANBERRA (Reuter): Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and
Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said yesterday they had
agreed that the nations in APEC forum should adopt a specific
timetable to free up trade in the region.
Leaders of the 17-nation Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) forum are due to meet at Bogor in Indonesia in November
and a proposal for free trade in the region by 2020 will be high
on the agenda.
Goh said APEC should aim to set defined dates for trade
liberalization.
"We should try and aim for that, but we should also be
sensitive to the concerns of other countries," Goh told a news
conference with Keating following a two-day visit where he also
met trade and defense officials.
An APEC preliminary group has already recommended that the
forum adopt a blueprint towards free trade in the region,
starting in 2000 and ending with completely free trade for all
forum countries by 2020.
And the APEC-endorsed Pacific Business Forum has urged APEC to
aim for free regional trade by 2010.
"We will approach this with some elasticity in mind -- it can
be a range of dates starting from 2005 and ending in 2020 for
countries in various categories," Goh said. "But we should aim
for some dates."
Dates
Keating has previously endorsed the proposal for specific
target dates for free trade. "The important thing is the start
dates," Keating told the news conference.
"The finish dates tend to be something that local industries
very quickly pick up in the changed environment and they arrive
more quickly than the nominal end points set by governments --
it's really about getting a beginning," he said.
APEC, which accounts for about half of world's economic
output, is made up of Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong,
Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua
New Guinea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, South
Korea and the United States.
Chile is to join at the November meeting.
Keating said he and Goh had similar positions on how the group
should develop.
"Prime Minister Goh and I have a fairly close view on how we
think APEC should develop and included in that view a very strong
belief that we should give (Indonesian) President Soeharto every
support in making the meeting a success," Keating said.
Goh also emphasized a start date.
"If we can achieve something by the year 1998 then we would
regard that as a good start date," Goh said, adding an agreement
to start trade liberalization should be reached by 1995.
Singapore would prefer APEC members choose 2010 as an end
date, but realizes some of the less-developed countries were more
likely to accept 2015 or 2020, Goh said.
Goh also said he supported Malaysia's initiative for an East
Asian trade grouping known as the East Asia Economic Caucus
(EAEC) as long as it did not clash with APEC.
"To us APEC is a very important organization, and the EAEC
must not in any way affect the progress of APEC," Goh said.
Keating and Goh also announced the setting up of a fund for
feasibility studies into joint Australia-Singapore export
initiatives into other Asian countries.
In a speech on Monday, Goh said Australian companies could
form partnerships with Singaporean companies to expand in Asia,
noting expertise among many Australian firms in tourist resort
development, mining and infrastructure development.