APEC Developing Plans to Help Implement WTO CommitmentsAPEC is developing strategic plans for economies needing help to implement World Trade Organization commitments, Joseph Damond, APEC Economic Chairman on Trade And Investment, said Saturday.Though it is still in the preparations stage, a lot of work has been done in this direction, and a lot of economies have expressed interest, he told reporters at a briefing on APEC trade and investment. Damond said the areas being looked into include intellectual property rights, customs valuation and some other very specific WTO obligations. Steps are also taken to improve individual and collective action, as this will be a catalyst to the multilateral business and trading system, he said, adding one of the steps to improve individual action plan is the development of the electronic individual action plan. He said each economy will put its report plan on the Internet so as to make it more transparent and easily accessible by the public, thus helping economies get updated on each other's progress. He said that on the collective action side, APEC has started over the past few years the peer review process and there will be discussions on trade impediments on non-tariff measures. Two areas identified as important are in the automobile and chemical sectors, he said, adding several regional dialogues have been held to discuss trade facilitation principles to define the term and to provide directions for moving forward. He said there are also efforts to help the customs in APEC economies move towards paperless transaction, thus making the customs departments more transparent and efficient. |
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