Apec group to push for free trade area

The Apec Business Advisory Council wants the region's leaders to reinvigorate trade liberalisation by commissioning a study of the feasibility of an Asia-Pacific free trade agreement.

Frustrated by slow progress on Apec's original agenda of liberalising trade and investment, the business ginger group has called on the Apec leaders, who meet in Santiago this month, to examine the potential scope and features of a free trade pact.

"It would encompass as many economies as want to participate," said Sir Dryden Spring, one of New Zealand's three representatives on the council.

He said he hesitated to call it a coalition of the willing, but it would get around the problem that Apec-wide initiatives required consensus among all 21 member economies.