MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

APEC pledges global trade but considers options

Leaders from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum pledged to tackle a deadlock in global trade talks after ending Sunday their key regional summit in Vietnam but are also considering alternatives for when they meet next year in Australia.

The final statement in Hanoi from the 21 APEC members says "we should spare no efforts to break the current (global trade) deadlocks and achieve an ambitious and overall balanced outcome", and warned of "grave" consequences if the stalled discussions are not resurrected. World Trade Organization, WTO, Doha Round talks collapsed last July after countries failed to reach agreement on agriculture subsidies.

The 21 member Apec which includes the US, China, Japan, Russia, Canada, South Korea and Mexico among others represents more than half the world's economy and over 40% of the world's population.

US President George Bush used the APEC summit to try to gather support for a free trade zone between the organization's 21 members which would standardize trade in a region with a proliferation of bilateral agreements.

"The key game has to be WTO" argued New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. "But if the WTO Doha round stumbles so badly that it went into suspension for years, then of course an agreement which covers countries around about 60% of the world economy is very attractive for the Pacific".

US President Bush urged Asian leaders in a speech in Singapore to give serious consideration to setting up a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, or FTAAP.

Analysts have said that the US proposal is an insurance policy in case efforts to revive global trade talks fail or are further suspended.

But forging a trade treaty among the group's 21 members would radically change the nonbinding nature of APEC, which was formed in 1989 as a consultative forum to promote trade and investment.

Several members of the group, including China, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, are resisting the idea. Other nations such as Japan want to focus instead on East Asian integration.

"An FTAAP at this point will only distract us from the more important goal of restarting and concluding the DDA (Doha Development Agenda) negotiations," said Philippine Trade Secretary Peter Favila.

Nevertheless APEC leaders even acknowledging "practical difficulties" in building such a zone, asked their officials to study the idea as a long-term prospect and report back to them at next year's summit in Sydney, Australia.

WTO members widely agree that they need to conclude a trade deal by early next year before U.S. President George W. Bush's special authority to negotiate an agreement with a simple yes-or-no vote in Congress without amendments expires July 1, 2007.

"We can begin to think about it but it's not necessary to enter into negotiations at the moment," Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said. "I think it is better that our economic officials concentrate on getting the Doha Development Round moving".

"APEC's going through this steady process of reorientation, and in many respects the badge of the organization, which was originally set up to promote trade liberalization, is changing" said Alan Oxley, chairman of the APEC Study Center at Australia's Monash University in Melbourne.

Australia, the host of next year's summit, has flagged a shift of focus toward energy and security issues. Australian Primer Minister Howard told reporters he wants APEC's priority to be the development of clean-coal technology and other means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, the G-20 meeting of the world's finance leaders said it was "essential" to get a successful conclusion to the Doha round of world trade talks.

Meeting in Melbourne, they said faster global economic growth was need to help cut poverty, and warned that "rising protectionism" was threatening global prosperity.

The 21 APEC members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam.