APEC Acts with Speed on Trade

Apec yesterday brushed aside criticisms about its relevance in promoting world trade by sending a strongly worded call for world trade talks to be urgently resumed.

As the host of the Apec summit, which ended here yesterday, Thailand, in an unprecedented move, immediately delivered the summit’s Bangkok Declaration to the World Trade Organisation’s general council in Geneva.

The declaration called, in part, for a rapid resumption of multilateral trade talks and committed the region to “work towards the abolition of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and unjustifiable export prohibitions and restrictions”.

By doing so, Thailand and other Apec members were sending a collective political signal, particularly to the European Union, to return to the negotiating table and strike a deal on the Doha Development Agenda, Apec officials said.

The Thai role salvaged somewhat the embarrassment caused by not inviting WTO directorgeneral Supachai Panichpakdi to the Apec summit, although he was in Bangkok to meet many of the delegates unofficially.

Supachai immediately welcomed the outcome of the summit and was quoted as saying that he felt the ministers he spoke to were keen to get global trade talks back on track, a spokesman said in Geneva.

“It was very clear from the people he spoke with that there is a real desire to get down to business, to focus on substance and not go in for political rhetoric, said the spokesman.

Supachai met nine ministers on the sidelines of the Bangkok forum, including US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi. He also spoke to President Ricardo Lagos of Chile, where the next Apec gathering will be held.

The Bangkok declaration also gave hope that Japan would participate more actively this time around in seeing through the Doha Round.

In a press conference in Bangkok yesterday, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Japan must liberalise its agricultural market if it is to successfully pursue free trade arrangements.

“We must face up to the liberalisation of agriculture,” he said.

The message Thailand delivered on behalf of Apec to the WTO’s general council was explicit in that all of the 146 members should reopen talks in Geneva in December, in line with the Chairman Derbez Text of September 13, 2003.

The Chairman Derbez Text is a compromise version of the final text of the Cancun conference that takes into account the trade and economic interests of all member countries.

By relying on the Chairman Derbez Text, negotiators do not have to restart tedious negotiations from scratch.

The shock waves from the collapse of the Doha Development Agenda trade talks in Cancun in September were carried to the Apec meeting in Bangkok. As a result, senior officials, ministers and the leaders of the 21 Apec members focused most of their time and energy over the past week discussing how best to salvage the talks.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said: “We agreed to press for an ambitious and balanced outcome to the Doha Development Round, including by instructing Apec’s ministers and negotiators in Geneva to maintain regular informal consultations to find common ground on issues under negotiation.”

Since Apec consists of major economies such as the United States, Canada, Japan, China, Australia and the 10member Asean grouping, the signal it has sent out over agricultural reforms and a phasingout of export subsidies is clearly directed at the European Union.

“Apec is clearly sending a signal to the EU that it should come back to the negotiating table. It seems that the EU is left alone now,” one Apec official said.

Apec leaders also spent their time discussing the impact of bilateral and regional free trade arrangements on the global trading system.

In the end, they concluded that any bilateral or regional free trade arrangements should support the WTO and be consistent with the Doha Development Agenda.

“We emphasised that free trade arrangements must complement and enhance the multilateral trading system, not divide the global economy into numerous trading blocs,” Thaksin said.

“We noted that countries that are ready to liberalise their economies can do so and should also help others in moving forward.”

They also pledged to work together to support two Apec’s members – Russia and Vietnam – to become members of the WTO.