Free trade agenda endorsed

Free trade agenda endorsed

By Endy M. Bayuni

OSAKA, Japan (JP): The 18 members of the Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation forum agreed yesterday to move forward under the APEC
framework, while allowing each country latitude in its pursuit of
regional free trade.

APEC ministers wound up their two-day conference with a
recommendation to their leaders, who will meet here tomorrow, on
an "Action Agenda" to remove trade barriers in the Asia-Pacific
region by 2020 at the latest.

The APEC leaders, at their meeting last year in Bogor,
Indonesia, agreed to completely liberalize trade in the region,
setting a 2010 deadline for developed member economies and 2020
for developing economies.

"I believe that this ministerial meeting has marked the first
step in the transition of APEC from vision to action," Japanese
Minister of International Trade and Industry Ryutaro Hashimoto,
who co-chaired the conference with Japanese foreign minister
Yohei Kono, said after the conference at a joint press conference
with all of the APEC ministers.

The agenda also emphasized the importance of trade
facilitation and development cooperation among APEC members in
the move towards free trade.

"For liberalization and facilitation, we have adopted a method
which moves forward through a combination of concerted,
unilateral actions, collective actions and multilateral actions,"
Hashimoto said. "I believe that this structure is unique in that
it is underpinned by mutual confidence in voluntary efforts of
liberalization in the Asia-Pacific region, and not the
negotiating approach characteristic of GATT/WTO."

Kono said the "concerted unilateral" approach "would
significantly contribute to the future multilateral trade
liberalization process."

The agenda is the product of a year's worth of tough
negotiations, which faced the reluctance of some members to
totally free up their markets and debate as to the pace of
expected trade liberalization.

A compromise was eventually reached here in Osaka on Thursday,
just in time for the informal APEC leaders meeting.

Nine principles

The ministers agreed on nine general principles of trade
liberalization and facilitation: comprehensiveness, consistency
with the World Trade Organization, comparability, non-
discrimination, transparency, standstill, simultaneous start,
continuous process and differentiated time tables, flexibility,
and cooperation.

In the joint statement, the ministers said each member country
will submit its action plan on trade liberalization at their next
meeting in the Philippines in 1996, to be implemented in January
1997.

Hashimoto said the agenda and its implementation will give
innumerable benefits to individuals as well as businesses. "It
is based on such a judgment that we ministers submit this draft
action agenda with confidence to the leaders."

Other decisions agreed to at the ministerial conference
include:

* The establishment of the APEC Business Advisory Committee to
bring in the participation of the private sector in APEC's
processes.

* Concluding the task of the Eminent Persons Group, whose
three reports have been influential in persuading APEC leaders to
move to liberalize trade and investment. However, a new advisory
body may be established in the future if there is a need for one.

* An expansion of the Singapore-based APEC secretariat and a
doubling of the staff to handle the growing volume of work.

* Endorsing Japan's Partners for Progress proposal as a
mechanism for cooperation.

* Allowing non-APEC members to participate in some of its
working group sessions, though requests will be considered on a
case-by-case basis.

* The appointment of New Zealand to chair the forum in 1999.
The ministers decided beforehand that the Philippines will chair
the forum in 1996, Canada in 1997 and Malaysia in 1998.

Founded in 1989, APEC now consists of Australia, Brunei,
Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines,
Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.

APEC officials said any discussion of new membership had been
postponed until next year. The forum has set a three-year
moratorium on new members which will end in 1996. Several
countries, including Russia, Peru, India, Colombia, Panama and
Vietnam have requested to join.

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