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TRADE
officials of the member-countries of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (Apec) will meet in Melbourne,
Australia, from August 3 to 5 to sort out legal and
political issues in the proposed structural reforms
involving competition policy, regulatory reforms,
public-sector management, customs tariff, governance
issues and anticorruption measures.
Resolving all issues relative to these factors would
enable the regional trading bloc to ensure it could
continue comprehensively pushing for better trade and
investments in the region, and is a necessary prelude to
setting up a proposed Asia-Pacific-Free Trade Agreement
(FTA-AP).
Foreign
Undersecretary for International Trade Relations Edsel
Custodio said, “The structural reforms in Apec seek to
upgrade the quality of all economies and address
existing regulations [of the member-countries] that
serve as impediments to trade.”
He
added: “For many decades, Apec policies on trade and
investments lack continuity. . .every agenda is subject
on a year-to-year basis depending on the wishes of the
host economy.”
Part of
these reforms is to appoint two key officials—a chief
operations officer to perform institutional functions
and an executive director to lead policy research—that
would allow Apec to reach out to financial institutions,
research organizations and academe.
Member-economies are pushing for an Apec-wide free-trade
pact owing to the lack of movement in the Doha Round of
negotiations in the World Trade Organization.
The FTA-AP
seeks to integrate around 19 existing Apec trade
agreements, including the five FTAs signed separately by
some members of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations with members of Apec.
Apec is
considered to be the most influential and beneficial
trading forum, covering over 50 percent of the global
gross domestic product and 41 percent of the global
trade. For the last two decades, the regional forum has
also come up with a web of regional and bilateral trade
agreements to ensure better trade facilitation and
access of their respective products into each other’s
market.
Apec
members include the Philippines, Canada, Australia,
Peru, the United States, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia,
Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Chile, Brunei,
South Korea and China. |
