Keating will be the key to APEC accord in Osaka

Keating will be the key to APEC accord in Osaka

CANBERRA (Agencies): Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating will play a key role in heading off a bid by four Asian economies to exclude farm trade from a free trade blueprint at the upcoming APEC summit, Trade Minister Bob McMullan predicted yesterday.

Leaders from the 18-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum will begin efforts in Osaka, Japan, next week to advance the commitment made in Bogor, Indonesia, last year to scrapping barriers to regional free trade by 2020.

But farm trade currently looms as the biggest obstacle to an accord and, according to some countries, even threatens the future of APEC.

Australia and the United States are among a group of countries insisting the free-trade program must be comprehensive with no exclusions while this year's host nation Japan, along with China, South Korea and Taiwan want special treatment for politically sensitive agriculture sectors.

U.S. officials are reported here to have told their Australian counterparts that Keating would have to live up to his "spark plug" reputation and play a critical role in finding a settlement.

"There are some things that only leaders can break through," McMullan told reporters here.

"He's an effective operator," McMullan added. "Our position is well served by having him there.

McMullan reiterated Australia's threat to refuse to sign any agreement at Osaka that excluded agriculture from free trade plans.

"It's hard to conceive of a circumstance in which an Australian prime minister ... would sign an agreement which excluded agriculture when we'd spent 40 years trying to get it on the international trade agenda," he said.

APEC leaders agreed at Bogor to eliminate trade barriers by 2010 with developing nations following 10 years later.

In Tokyo, Hiromoto Seki, Japan's ambassador in charge of the APEC forum, told reporters yesterday that Japan is firmly committed to the forum's pact to axe barriers to trade and investment by 2020, but wants sensitive sectors to be given special treatment.

"...Some sensitive sectors deserve different treatment within the spirit of the Bogor Declaration," he said.

"We are already committed to liberalizing agricultural sectors. But the way the agricultural sector is going to be liberalized should be different from that of other sectors," Seki said.

"We hope this matter will be resolved at our level preferably, but if unavoidable, at a ministerial level."

In Seoul, a senior government official said yesterday that South Korea will insist on its demand for special treatment for farm trade when APEC leaders meet next week.

Ban Ki-moon, deputy foreign minister for policy planning, told reporters that such highly sensitive areas should be treated differently when liberalizing trade.

"We believe the agricultural sector should be treated differently as it is intrinsically different from other sectors," Ban said.

"We will be flexible but it is our firm position that there should be due consideration to highly sensitive areas."

He said South Korea was committed to continuing its efforts to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers as agreed in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Nearly 70 percent of South Korea's total trade is with APEC members and about 80 percent of South Korea's investment is in APEC nations, he added.