Officials say APEC needs 'injection of dynamism'

Officials say APEC needs 'injection of dynamism'

BEIJING (Reuters): Asia-Pacific countries called for an "injection of dynamism" into APEC on Friday to kick-start its stalled agenda to liberalize trade and investment throughout the region by 2020.

The call came at the close of a meeting of senior officials of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group held in China's northeastern city of Dalian.

Senior APEC officials also hailed progress on China's entry to the World Trade Organization and expressed support for the launch of a new global trade round, according to a statement.

"They called for injection of dynamism into the APEC process as it enters the second decade of development by sharpening and updating the APEC vision and road map for achieving the Bogor Goals," said the statement from the office of Wang Guangya, chairman of the Dalian meeting.

The so-called Bogor Goals call for free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region by 2010 for developed countries and by 2020 for developing countries.

Some APEC economies and the business community have been frustrated by the group's lack of progress on the free trade credentials they first set out in 1994 in Bogor, Indonesia.

Critics have labeled APEC largely a "talking shop", and APEC upset business leaders after it abandoned efforts to fast-track tariff cuts in a range of sectors in New Zealand in 1999.

Officials said hopes were rising the October meeting of APEC leaders in Shanghai could yield real achievements after China recently threw its support behind the "Shanghai Accord", a U.S. proposed plan to help reinvigorate the forum.

"It's fair to say they (Chinese officials) have picked up more ambition," said one participant in the Dalian meeting.

"In the last couple of days, they've taken over the Shanghai Accord and it's no longer a U.S. proposal -- the chair is now leading," said the official, who declined to be identified.

But APEC members had yet to fully agree what the Shanghai Accord would contain and were still searching for a consensus, participants said.

APEC's support for China's entry to the WTO was more unanimous, they said.

"Senior officials welcomed the decisive progress made in China's accession to WTO," the statement said. "They also called for early accession of Chinese Taipei, Russia and Vietnam into WTO."

China is expected to formally join WTO by early next year at the latest. Taiwan, or Chinese Taipei as it is called within APEC, will enter the WTO shortly after China under a previous agreement. Although APEC agrees on the need for WTO members to launch a new trade round at a meeting at Qatar in November, there was division between members on what the agenda should cover.

"APEC members cover a wide spectrum of views on what should be in the (WTO) agenda," said George Troup, senior APEC official for New Zealand.

"So it will be pretty hard for APEC to come to a unified view on the details of the agenda," he told Reuters by telephone.

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