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.