APEC Ministers Meet on Hopes for New WTO Round

Trade ministers from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will meet this week to try to build momentum to relaunch a new round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks.

A four-point "confidence building plan" proposed by Japan at preliminary meetings in Brunei last week will be put to the meeting on June 6 and 7 in the Australian city of Darwin to be attended by WTO director general Mike Moore.

Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile, who will chair the meeting, has emphasised the importance of rebuilding support for a new WTO trade round at the first major meeting of international trade ministers since the collapse of WTO talks against a background of violent protests in Seattle last December.

Australia is also hoping to build on the impending accession to the WTO by China, host for APEC's 2001 summit in Shanghai.

"The APEC meeting in Auckland last year delivered strong support for new WTO negotiations and I'll be pushing for renewed vigour for opening world trade," Vaile said last week.

However United States deputy trade representative Richard Fisher, speaking in Sydney ahead of the Darwin meeting, said on Sunday that while he was keen to see a new round of global talks launched this year, current momentum as not "forceful."

Peter Drysdale, head of the Australian National University's Australia-Japan Research Centre, said Darwin was a critical opportunity for APEC to move toward a consensus on issues which have paralysed world trade talks.

Differences between the U.S and European Union and also between developing and industrial nations over labour, environment and anti-dumping issues scuttled talks in Seattle.

APEC officials said in Brunei the Japanese initiative to be put to the Darwin meeting included increased global access for products from less developed countries and helping member economies to build infrastructure to implement the WTO agenda.

"The big thing really is whether or not an effective coalition can be welded within APEC to get momentum into initiating a new round," Drysdale said, noting the organisation was structured to encourage consensus building and had been instrumental in advancing global talks in 1993.

"It won't happen at this meeting...but this is where this process will begin," he said, seeing positive symbolism in the attendance in Darwin of the WTO chief.

APEC groups 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 United States and Vietnam.

The APEC economies account for more than 60 percent of world gross domestic product and 45 percent of global trade.

The EU and U.S last week agreed at a meeting in Lisbon to try to launch a new round of global trade talks this year, but the two sides continued to haggle over key issues such as the E.U's banana import policy, its ban on the import of hormone-treated beef, and also over U.S export tax breaks.

Kim Anderson, director of the University of Adelaide's Centre for International Economic Studies, said "momentum-building" toward a new round would have added impetus in Darwin as APEC tried to shore up its reputation, battered by perceptions of failure in the wake of the Asian economic crisis.

But he said its hopes for any WTO breakthrough may be in vain, with forthcoming elections in the United States and France likely to reduce the mood among key players for new talks.

"I think it's an uphill battle," he said.

The meeting is also expected to move to clearer progress reports on the individual action plans for each member country, which cover a range of areas from tariffs to services.

It is also likely to canvass the contentious trend towards sub-regional and bilateral free trade agreements.

Many members have voiced concern the agreements could lead to preferential and discriminatory trade practices and work against the APEC goals of free and open trade by 2010 for industrialised economies and 2020 for developing members.

"Will they be agreements which discriminate against other APEC members and the rest of the world and have no timeframe for being removed, or will they relate to the APEC goals," Drysdale asked. "There's huge confusion about it."



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