WTO chief urges Asia to drop trade barriers
WTO chief urges Asia to drop trade barriers
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (Reuter): World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Renato Ruggiero said yesterday the dynamic economies of the Asia-Pacific should lead the world in axing trade barriers.
Ruggiero told trade ministers of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum that faster progress on forging agreement to tear down trade barriers was vital to the success of the WTO's first ministerial meeting in Singapore in December.
"It is still hard to say how far we are from reaching this consensus, but I have to call your attention to the fact that time is limited and that we are not seeing sufficient movement towards agreement," he told the opening of the APEC trade ministers' talks.
New Zealand Trade Minister Philip Burdon told reporters the group would take up Ruggiero's challenge to show leadership on free trade issues.
"Quite clearly, there's an ambition to continue to give leadership on trade liberalization and APEC sees itself as playing a pro-active role," Burdon said.
"He (Ruggiero) wants a positive outcome out of Singapore and he went to pains to emphasize that this won't simply happen. It requires leadership and he would clearly be disappointed if the APEC member economies could not or did not give that leadership."
APEC's 18 members account for 38 percent of the world's population, 54 percent of its gross domestic product and 45 percent of its trade.
Ruggiero's request came as APEC chairman Rizalino Navarro said some of the group's members needed to toughen their blueprints for implementing a 1994 free trade pact.
"The quality is a little uneven. I will urge the economies to further improve the submissions tomorrow," he told reporters.
As APEC trade ministers met, talks continued between the group's two biggest economies, the United States and Japan, over renewing a trade agreement on access to Japan's microchip market.
Acting U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky told reporters her talks with Japanese International Trade and Industry Minister Shunpei Tsukahara were constructive.
Offer
A Japanese government spokesman told Reuters that Tokyo was considering a fresh offer from Barshefsky, but gave no details.
"They have not agreed yet today and they're probably going to talk about the same issue tomorrow, but the distance is getting smaller and smaller," the spokesman quoted Tsukahara as saying.
At a meeting with Indonesia, U.S. officials said Washington again raised concerns about Jakarta's car policy, which gives special tariff and tax breaks to a car maker controlled by one of President Soeharto's sons.
They said further talks between the two countries would be held in Washington in early August.
In telecommunications, Washington is urging APEC countries to table better offers to free up their markets as part of negotiations due to conclude by next February.
The U.S. officials said there was less possibility of clear consensus emerging at the Christchurch meeting on sensitive issues such as trade and labor standards, where there are sharp differences between developed and developing countries.
Ministers from APEC are meeting here to discuss the group's position ahead of the Singapore WTO talks.
They are reviewing progress in implementing the last round of global trade accords and their own free trade pact, both struck in 1994, and examining unfinished business in areas such as maritime trade and telecommunications.
APEC groups 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.