Trade liberalization

At the top of the agenda during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings over the coming week will be a proposal to set up some form of regional trade liberalization.

The justification for doing so in APEC, rather than globally, is that the worldwide system of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has become too cumbersome.

GATT, soon to be superseded by the World Trade Organization (WTO), now has close to 130 members.

Their interests and concerns are so different that achieving agreement on the GATT consensus rule is becoming extremely complicated.

The argument is not to replace the GATT/WTO system with regional groupings. Rather, regional liberalization should be used as a means of making global liberalization easier to negotiate in a step-by-step sequence.

Therefore, APEC liberalization is described as "going beyond GATT."

What was not achieved in the Uruguay Round of the GATT talks should be attempted in at the APEC forum.

There is some sense in the argument. There is also sense in the warning that the argument could be a ruse by the richer APEC countries to put pressure on the weaker members.

The debate in the United States over ratification of the Uruguay Round deal is ample proof of the pressures that exist.

The APEC economic leaders should require the better off Pacific families to yield more.

They should say they understand that unless the developed countries give priority in areas of concern to developing APEC members, any attempt to liberalize beyond the GATT/WTO agreements on trade and investment will be unacceptable to the developing country members.

-- The Bangkok Post