Five APEC members fail to submit free trade plan

Five APEC members fail to submit free trade plan

MANILA (AFP): Five of the 18 members of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) have failed to submit plans for
freeing trade and investment by an October 30 deadline, an
official said yesterday.

APEC members have been strengthening earlier outline
individual free trade plans and the detailed revised plans are to
be presented to an APEC leaders' summit in the Philippines next
month.

Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Federico Macaranas, chair of
the series of APEC senior officials' meetings ahead a leaders'
summit on Nov. 25, declined to name the economies which missed
the deadline.

His statement appeared to conflict with comments earlier
Thursday by APEC organizers here who said all 18 members had
completed their individual plans and submitted them to Philippine
President Fidel Ramos.

Ramos is host of the Nov. 25 APEC summit in the Philippines.

At Bogor, Indonesia, the APEC members agreed in 1994 to remove
trade and tariff barriers in the region by 2010 for developed
nations and by 2020 for developing nations.

"This is exactly what we sought to do at the beginning of the
year," Ramos told a news conference.

Diplomatic sources said the APEC members who missed the
deadline could be those which are scheduled to hold or which have
just concluded national elections.

Among the economies caught in the election season are Japan,
New Zealand, Thailand and the United States. Japanese officials
earlier this month insisted they would meet the deadline.

Macaranas said 12 economies submitted their individual action
plans during the final meeting of senior trade and finance
officials in Manila two weeks ago, and one beat the deadline on
Wednesday.

Claro Critobal, information officer of the senior officials'
meetings, said they had not expected all APEC members to meet the
deadline, as some had said they would need further consultations
with newly elected leaders.

The free trade plans will be consolidated into the Manila
Action Plan to be approved by the APEC leaders during their
November 25 in the northern freeport of Subic Bay.

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