APEC leaders endorse roadmap to free trade

BEIJING – Leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit endorsed yesterday a “road map” to help the grouping contribute to free trade in the region.

The leaders endorsed the “Beijing Roadmap for APEC’s Contribution to the Realization of the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific” or FTAAP at the conclusion of their meetings here.

The FTAAP will build on other free trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the United States is pushing.

“We will pursue the FTAAP with a step-by-step, consensus-based approach, and affirm our commitment to the eventual realization of the FTAAP as early as possible by building on ongoing regional undertakings, which will contribute significantly to sustained growth and overall prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region,” the leaders said in a declaration issued after the summit.

The APEC leaders, gathered under the theme “Shaping the Future through Asia-Pacific Partnership,” held discussions on regional economic integration, promoting innovative development, strengthening comprehensive connectivity and infrastructure development to expand and deepen Asia-Pacific regional economic cooperation.

They likewise expressed support for a stronger anti-corruption measure in countries covered by APEC.

“We support the Beijing Declaration on Fighting Corruption and welcome the APEC Principles on the Prevention of Bribery and Enforcement of Anti-Bribery Laws, and APEC General Elements of Effective Voluntary Corporate Compliance Programs,” the declaration read.

“We commit to work together against corruption and deny safe haven for corrupt officials and their illicitly acquired assets,” it added.

“We are committed to strengthening cooperation and coordination on repatriation or extradition of corrupt officials as well as confiscation and recovery of corruption proceeds and, where appropriate, through the use of anti-corruption mechanisms and platforms such as the APEC Network of Anti-Corruption and Law Enforcement Agencies (ACT-NET),” the leaders said in their joint declaration.

Blueprint

The leaders also directed APEC ministers and senior officials to develop a dedicated arrangement for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating the implementation of the APEC Connectivity Blueprint for 2015 as well as for conducting a midterm review of the blueprint in 2020.

“Conducting activities contained within this strategic blueprint will be essential to strengthening our mutual economic ties in the global network, and to ensuring our regional economy is resilient, our growth is inclusive, and our economies become ever more connected,” the leaders said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, host of the summit, outlined actions that leaders would consider to advance regional economic integration as well as promote innovative development, economic reform and growth.

“The world economic recovery still faces many unpredictable and destabilizing factors. The Asia-Pacific has entered a new stage of development,” Xi said.

“In the face of new conditions, we need to intensify regional economic integration and foster an open environment that is conducive to long-term development,” he said.

“We need to be innovative in development approaches – pursue development through innovation and reform instead of driving it the usual way by relying on factors of production and export,” Xi added. “We need to advance scientific and technological innovation to facilitate energy and consumption revolution and make the Asia-Pacific region a global leader in achieving new technological revolution.”

In other initiatives this year, Beijing joined 20 other Asian countries in launching a regional development bank, despite US objections that it needlessly duplicated the World Bank’s work.

In May, Xi called for the creation of a new Asian structure for security cooperation based on a group that excludes Washington.

On Monday, US President Barack Obama insisted Washington sees no threat from Beijing’s growing economic and political status.

“The United States welcomes the rise of a prosperous, peaceful and stable China,” Obama said in a speech at the business conference.

Still, American officials chafe at Beijing’s insistence on promoting its proposed trade pact, the FTAAP.

It comes at a time when progress on a US-led initiative, the TPP, has stalled. The chief US trade envoy, Michael Froman, said Saturday the two pacts are “not in competition,” but he said Beijing should focus on wrapping up a US-Chinese investment treaty and a separate agreement to lower barriers to trade in information technology.

The TPP includes the US, Japan and 10 other countries, but excludes China. Few details have been released but its promoters say it would reduce or eliminate tariffs on most goods among the member countries. That might hurt China by encouraging member countries to trade more with each other.

China’s initiative is much less ambitious and is aimed at reducing conflict among overlapping trade agreements between pairs of Asia-Pacific economies.

The Chinese initiative is a logical response to being excluded from the TPP, said Li Wei, an economist at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing.

“If the US doesn’t want China to join the TPP, then China can form its own trade groups,” said Li.

Li also pointed to limits on access to US markets for some Chinese technology companies such as Huawei Technologies Ltd., a maker of network switching gear, on security grounds.

“The world, with the US leading, is retreating from free trade. It is moving into protectionism,” said Li. “If the US is saying, I should be careful about who I have free trade with, then China should take a more liberalizing role.”

On Saturday, APEC trade ministers issued a cautious endorsement of China’s initiative. They sent to the leaders’ meeting a proposal to launch a study of the plan but held off committing to deadlines or other details.

APEC accounts for more than 50 percent of global gross domestic product, nearly half of world trade and 40 percent of the Earth’s population.

Set up 25 years ago, it has long pushed free trade among its members, who have separately pursued bilateral and multilateral deals with other economies both inside and outside the organization.

APEC summits, which are consensus-based and have sometimes been criticized as talk shops, combine group meetings with a chance for leaders to meet on the sidelines in one-to-one bilateral sessions to discuss issues that affect their direct relations.

At Monday’s formal dinner that kicked off the summit, the hosts put on a spectacular, highly choreographed welcome for APEC leaders who arrived decked out in sleek, high-collared tunics as hundreds of dancers in the costumes of China’s dozens of ethnic minorities cheered wildly. – AFP

Source: http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/11/12/1390842/apec-leaders-endorse-roadmap-free-trade