Advance teams negotiate communique for leaders

By Vernon Small

When the Apec leaders and ministers arrive this week the heavy work will be mostly over.

About 500 senior officials will complete their work today and tomorrow at their last meeting to put the final touches to the Apec agenda.

In a separate process, the final communique, known as the Leaders' Declaration, has already been drafted. It awaits the final nod from US President Bill Clinton and the 20 other leaders who will spend this weekend in Auckland.

The trade ministers' declaration will also have been drafted, ready for the final "yes" from ministers.

The senior officials will hammer out a series of reports, which can be accepted or rejected by ministers and leaders, including countries' individual and collective action plans for trade liberalisation and a unified approach to the coming World Trade Organisation meeting.

A joint position for the Seattle WTO meeting in November is one of the crucial goals for Apec. It is likely to include a broad-based, as opposed to a sectoral, approach to tariff reduction to align the WTO's goals more closely with Apec's.

At the 1994 Apec summit in Bogor, Indonesia, leaders agreed to remove tariffs by 2010 for developed countries and 2020 for developing countries.

A lack of transparency, and poorly developed competition, governance and finance market regulations are seen as reasons for Asia's poor response to last year's financial crisis.

Officials expect the Auckland meeting to make progress on strengthening the region's markets, one of the three themes for this round, along with expanding business opportunities and broadening support for Apec.

A "tool-kit" of rules for domestic market access and regulation, including foreign investment and competition controls, will be put forward.

Significantly, this work extends Apec's focus from border issues - customs and tariffs - to affairs beyond the border. As a result, Apec member economies will evolve a genuine interest in one another's domestic laws.