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Pleasant surprises in APEC Action Agenda hinted

The Director-General of Trade, Mr Tony Miller, today (Friday) hinted at "pleasant surprises" in the Action Agenda which would be unveiled next month at the Economic Leaders' meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) in Osaka, Japan.

"Be prepared to be pleasantly surprised both by its scope and its openness," he told a luncheon meeting of the Belgium-Hong Kong Society in Brussels in his speech entitled "APEC: A New Force for Free Trade".

The Action Agenda will be the road map for achieving the goal of free trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region by the years 2010 or 2020 for industrialised and developing economies respectively as set down by APEC Economic Leaders at their last meeting in November last year.

Referring to its scope, Mr Miller said APEC Senior Officials could have just focused their attention on the obvious traditional areas of bringing down tariffs, breaking down non-tariff barriers and opening up the markets for goods and services.

"Instead, under the guidance of the Japanese Chair, we have gone about the task of setting specific targets and guidelines for both individual and collective action across the whole range of trade and economic activity and the associated rules, procedures and policies," he said.

"Thus the Agenda will say what we plan to do in such areas as investment, competition policy, rules of origin, customs procedures, standards and conformance, intellectual property rights and so on.

"Some have said that this is unrealistic. Our response has been to say that the Leaders have set us a clear and unequivocal target, that the twin target dates of 2010 and 2020 are sufficiently far ahead for all of us to address 'political realities', and that it is not for bureaucrats to be less ambitious than their masters.

"Nevertheless, the short, medium and long-term targets which we propose represent a realistic estimate of the time needed to move things forward and to firm up proposals in those areas where more time is required."

As regards openness, Mr Miller said the Leaders had committed APEC to a policy of open regionalism.