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HANOI - Cabinet ministers from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum decided on Wednesday to shelve plans for an ambitious Pacific rim free trade area for another year, officials said.
A US proposal for a vast free trade area sparked robust debate at Apec's opening session in Vietnam's capital, Japan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mitsuo Sakaba told reporters.
"After lengthy debate, the chair concluded that it should be studied as a long-term objective and report the result of that study to the next meeting in Australia," he said.
Business leaders had supported an Asia-Pacific Free Trade Agreement as a way of consolidating the dozens of bilateral and regional free trade agreements that have proliferated in recent years in the region.
An Apec vision of a vast free trade area along the Pacific rim, which accounts for nearly half of world trade and generates 70 per cent of economic growth, had lost considerable momentum to a plethora of mini-deals.
Apec will now devote its energies to an early resumption of the Doha round of global trade talks, which collapsed in July amid clashes over subsidies and tariffs for farm goods, the Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said.
World Trade Organisation Director General Pascal Lamy briefed the meeting and said he saw "a positive atmosphere for an early resumption of the Doha round", Sakaba said.
US Trade Representative Susan Schwab told a news conference earlier in Hanoi: "Resuscitating the Doha round is clearly the top trading priority for all WTO countries represented here at Apec."
Asked about reports that talks on the Doha round would resume in Geneva soon, she said: "What we are talking about is moving forward with informal processes to enable us to get the technical work done."
Schwab said it was important for both the United States and the European Union to do more on slashing trade-distorting agriculture subsidies.
"Small, quiet conversations on 'what ifs"', can and should be taking place under the radar, she added.
The Japanese spokesman said Apec ministers, while abandoning the grand Asia-Pacific FTA, would continue working on "model measures" that could be standardised in free trade agreements.
Those measures covering commodity trade, government procurement, trade barriers, transparency and cooperative programmes, such as training.
- REUTERS
