APEC to pursue free trade area based on regional frameworks+

YOKOHAMA, Nov. 14 Kyodo -
Pacific Rim leaders agreed Sunday in Yokohama to play a key role in forging a
vast free trade agreement encompassing the thriving region based on a
U.S.-backed free trade initiative and other existing regional undertakings,
while adopting their first-ever common growth strategy to seek better quality
of growth.
The agreement written in a declaration issued after the two-day summit of the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum highlighted the 21 member economies'
eagerness to take concrete steps to bring ''reality'' to their vision to create
a Free-Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, which had been considered no more than a
vague concept.
Called the ''Yokohama Vision,'' the leaders' declaration stipulates the future
direction for the 21-year-old forum, which has seen progress in its past trade
liberalization efforts and needs to adapt to the changing global economic
landscape after the 2008 financial crisis.
But the vision's effectiveness remains to be seen as the forum, to be chaired
by the United States next year, operates on the basis of non-binding
commitments and did not set any clear timelines for the envisaged regionwide
free trade area or social indexes to gauge the progress in growth quality as
sought in the strategy.
''To promote liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, we will
seek to become a close community that promotes deeper economic integration,''
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in announcing the declaration as chair
of the latest annual summit, held for the first time in the country since 1995.
''To realize this, we will make an FTAAP the goal for APEC,'' Kan said.
In the declaration, the leaders said an FTAAP ''should be pursued as a
comprehensive free trade agreement by developing and building on ongoing
regional undertakings,'' including the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership
initiative and the ''ASEAN plus three'' grouping preferred by China.
''To this end, APEC will make an important and meaningful contribution as an
incubator of an FTAAP by providing leadership and intellectual input into the
process of its development,'' it said.
The goal is part of a wider vision that APEC will seek to ''develop a
community'' which is more economically integrated, provides a more secure
economic environment and has a higher quality of growth, according to the
document.
ASEAN plus three groups Japan, China, South Korea and the 10-member Association
of Southeast Asian Nations, while the TPP is being negotiated by nine APEC
members including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States as an
ambitious regional free trade agreement.
During the summit and a later press conference, Kan reiterated Tokyo's positive
stance toward joining the TPP initiative, which would encompass two of the
world's three largest economies if Japan joins it.
With the initiative increasingly garnering attention in the region, U.S.
President Barack Obama and other leaders of the nine negotiating countries held
the TPP's first-ever summit on the sidelines of APEC and welcomed the ''solid
progress'' they have made so far, a White House press release said.
Kan joined the meeting as an observer, in his capacity as APEC host. But Japan
has yet to announce whether it wants to join the TPP, as concerns remain at
home about drastically opening up its heavily protected agricultural market
because the TPP would require member economies in effect to reduce all tariffs
to zero.
Kan said in his own news conference after the one announcing the Yokohama
Vision that he was urged by ''many TPP countries to decide to join the
framework as early as possible'' in the TPP summit.
For a community that promotes high quality growth, APEC set forth a strategy
through 2015 that includes an action plan focusing on such issues as structural
reform, human resource and entrepreneurship development, and human security.
Human security involves such issues as counterterrorism and food security.
With the target year of 2010 having arrived for developed members to attain
their long-held free trade goals, the leaders hailed the ''significant
progress'' seen among five such members plus eight others but also said ''more
work remains to be done'' toward the goals.
Under the so-called Bogor Goals, named after the Indonesian city where APEC
leaders reached the agreement in 1994, developed economies are committed to
achieving free and open trade and investment by 2010, and developing economies
by 2020. The goals have no specific numerical targets.
According to the declaration, the average applied tariff rate across the region
fell to 6.6 percent in 2008 from 10.8 percent in 1996. It was 16.9 percent in
1989 when the forum was launched, APEC data show.
The leaders also said that they will refrain from ''competitive devaluation''
of their currencies as some countries' monetary policies have sparked concerns
over protectionism in global trade, and reaffirmed their strong commitment to
bringing the stalled Doha Round of global market-opening talks to a prompt
conclusion.
They also extended their ''commitment on standstill'' made in 2008 until the
end of 2013 to refrain from raising new trade barriers and imposing new export
restrictions, as concerns linger over China's tightening control of its rare
earth exports.
APEC accounts for 52.7 percent of the world's gross domestic product and 44.4
percent of global trade by value, according to the latest data offered by the
Japanese government.
What was initially a 12-member forum now groups Australia, Canada, Chile,
China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea,
Peru, Russia, Taiwan, the United States, and seven ASEAN members -- Brunei,
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
==Kyodo
2010-11-14 21:44:15