APEC aims Pacific trade treaty

JAPAN: APEC leaders agreed Sunday to transform their hopes to build a trans-Pacific trade treaty into a more solid vision and said they would take steps to make that happen.

“We have agreed that now is the time for APEC to translate FTAAP from an aspirational to a more concrete vision,” the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders said in a statement. The 21-member APEC’s grand plan is for a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) that would link economies from China to Chile and the United States, but it has until now remained an undefined and long-term goal.

“To that end, we instruct APEC to take concrete steps towards realisation of an FTAAP, which is a major instrument to further APEC’s regional economic integration agenda,” they said at the end of a two-day summit in Japan. “Furthermore, an FTAAP should do more than achieve liberalisation in its narrow sense, it should be comprehensive, high quality and incorporate and address ‘next generation’ trade and investment issues.”

Meanwhile the presidents of the United States, China and Russia were Saturday due to meet with other Pacific Rim leaders for a summit in Japan that threatens to be overshadowed by regional tensions.

US President Barack Obama and China’s Hu Jintao, who flew in after a Group of 20 summit in South Korea, have sparred over currencies and trade, while Japan is embroiled in territorial spats with both China and Russia. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, being held under tight security in Yokohama near Tokyo, is meant to push forward trade liberalisation in a region that accounts for more than half of global economic activity.

But, aside from general pledges of support for free trade, little progress is expected on forging new pacts at a time when the world economy is limping out of a deep downturn and there are fears protectionism is on the rise.

At the G20 summit, Obama, who is licking his wounds after a mid-term electoral drubbing last week, renewed the US charge that China keeps its yuan undervalued to boost its exports at the expense of American jobs.

Tokohama,Sunday, AFP