MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Asia Summit Pushes WTO Talks, Free Trade

U.S. President George W. Bush and other Pacific Rim leaders meeting in Hanoi, this week will issue an SOS for stalled world trade talks, while mulling a region-wide free trade agreement, officials said Monday.

Leaders of the 21 economies of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum plan to issue an urgent appeal for compromise to help break the deadlock in the World Trade Organization talks, Vietnam's deputy foreign minister, Le Cong Phung, said after senior officials ended two days of preliminary talks.

"Given the deadlock ... members agreed APEC leaders will issue a standalone statement," Phung said. "This special statement, with special recommendations and measures, reflects the strong determination of APEC members to resume negotiations."

Prospects to revive the "Doha round" of world trade negotiations _ named for the Qatari capital where they began five years ago_ are fading. Bush's authority to negotiate a "fast-track" agreement that can be submitted to Congress for a simple yes-or-no vote without amendments is due to expire on July 1, 2007.

"This is the last chance for APEC leaders to save the Doha Development Agenda from deadlock," said Phung, who chaired meetings of senior officials preparing for the summit this weekend.

APEC members stretch from Russia to New Zealand and Chile _ a diverse grouping that if mobilized could give new life to the sputtering WTO talks. The grouping played a pivotal role in reviving the earlier "Uruguay round" of trade talks.

Progress on WTO in Hanoi would be icing on the cake for Vietnam, which is showcasing its own economic reforms as it prepares to become the Geneva-based trade watchdog's 150th member next month.

Meanwhile, a proposal for a free-trade area encompassing the entire Asian-Pacific region has also reemerged as a key item on the APEC agenda, Phung said.

Business leaders have floated the idea out of frustration with APEC's slow progress toward goals, set in Bogor, Indonesia, in 1994, for free trade and investment across the Pacific by the year 2010 for developed countries and 2020 for developing countries.

Such a free trade area would dwarf all other regional trade agreements, since APEC members control about half of world trade. But APEC's nonbinding nature raises questions about how the plan would be executed.

At recent APEC summits, terrorism and security issues have been dominant themes _ and North Korea's recent nuclear test is bound to get attention. But many APEC members, as well as the group's business advisory council, are keen to ensure the group keeps its focus on its founding goal: to promote economic growth through investment and trade on both sides of the Pacific Rim.

Beyond the formal agenda for Hanoi, the gathering shows how the APEC region _ comprising 2.6 billion people and 57 percent of the world economy _ has surged ahead. Much of that growth is due to China's stunning emergence, though Beijing may not take center stage in Hanoi given APEC's crowded agenda.

Trade across the Pacific has boomed since APEC got its start in 1989. At that time, the United States and Japan dominated the Pacific Rim's economic scene. There was no WTO, the U.S. embargoed trade from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and Taiwan barred investments on the Chinese mainland.

"When the APEC meetings began, Pacific trade was much more closed than it is now," said Edward Gresser of the Washington-based Progressive Policy Institute. Tariffs, he said, were 30 percent higher across the board then than they are now.

Back then, South Korea exported twice as much to the U.S. as to China. The same applied to most countries in Southeast Asia.

China is now the top destination for exports from both. China, which skirmished with Vietnam on its land and sea borders in the 1970s and 1980s, now talks of building economic corridors with its communist neighbor.

"Despite the fashion of scoffing at APEC's 'free and open trade' commitment, quite a lot has been done to lower barriers and integrate the region," Gresser said. (Agencies)