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SENIOR
officials of the member-countries of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (Apec) have agreed to study the
“divergence and convergence” of all the regional and
bilateral trade agreements previously signed by members
that will be integrated in the Asia Pacific Free-Trade
Agreement (FTA-AP) covering the 21 economies to better
facilitate trade and investments in the region.
Foreign undersecretary for International Economic
Relations Edsel Custodio said the regional economic
integration (REI), as part of the long-term program of
Apec, seeks to integrate the objectives of the so-called
Bogor goals, structural reforms, Investment Facilitation
Action Plan of 2008 and the Asia-Pacific FTA.
The
Apec senior officials had earlier stressed that the
regional economic trade is not meant to undermine
efforts of the global economies to revive Doha
negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO),
seeking to implement fair trade policies and eliminate
trade and nontrade barriers.
“There was a general view that the continued
examination of an FTA-AP was unlikely to have any
significant impact on the Doha Round,” said a five-page
chair’s summary conclusions of the Apec Senior
Officials’ Meeting held in June in Arequipa, Peru, a
copy of which was obtained by the BusinessMirror.
The
chair’s report said the timing envisaged for the
completion of Doha is much earlier than the longer-
term prospect of an FTAAP.
“Most
Apec economies had pursued FTAs and RTAs since the Doha
round was launched in 2001 while maintaining the WTO
negotiations as the first priority. Many important
bilateral and regional and trade and economic
initiatives had also been pursued around the world in
tandem with the Doha round,” said the Apec chair’s
conclusions.
At the
same time, Undersecretary Custodio said the elements
will be discussed in a meeting in Australia in July to
study the existing regional and bilateral trade
agreements by all member economies to identify the
chapters ‘for docking’ in the proposed Apec-wide free
trade deal.
Custodio said the meeting will look at how most of the
chapters are treated in the existing regional and
bilateral free-trade agreements entered into by the 21
member-economies.
The
chapters that are subject of study for ‘convergence’
include the rules of origin, technical barriers to
trade, liberalization of tariff and nontariff policies
and the intellectual property rights, Custodio said in
an interview with the BusinessMirror.
He
stressed however that, “the chapter on the rules of
origin is the most expensive and difficult as well as
misleading for the authorities to implement.” There are
24 existing free-trade agreements and five more trade
deals under negotiation by the 21 economies.
But he
said the meeting would help “start the ball rolling” in
order to come up with the model measures for
integratiion in the Apec free-trade deal.
Custodio said nine model measures are proposed for
integration in the regional FTA, including the services
and investment provision.
“Economies will come up with the language of agreement
with all the model measures,” said Custodio. “Model
measures serve as guide for the Apec economies’ attempt
to come up with a clear understanding of model
provisions and to minimize the spaghetti bowl of RTAs
and FTAs (regional trade agreements and free trade
agreements).”
However, the DFA official admitted that trade in
services—that include business processing outsourcing (BPOs)—remains
to be one of the “sticky points” because it is not yet
an integral part of the discussions. “This (trade in
services) is not yet on the radar screen of the Apec
economies.”
There
are around 19 existing intra-Apec trade agreements; and
members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)
also signed five trade agreements with Apec members. |
