John Armstrong: Dawn of the Asian century lights up Apec

Finance ministers are by nature cautious beasts and prone to hiding behind waffle and jargon when put on the spot. So when you hear the kind of unambiguous statements uttered by Apec's 21-strong complement after their day-long meeting on Thursday, you sit up and take notice.

They all basically agreed with Bill English's summation that the global economy is on the road to recovery - but there are still some bumps ahead.

They also largely agreed on something else. Driving that recovery would be the Asian economies that had largely survived the downturn intact - not the traditional powerhouse of the United States, where business and consumer confidence has been shattered and unemployment is more than 10 per cent and expected to go higher.

The meeting's chairman, Singapore's Finance Minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, was almost matter-of-fact in declaring the era of US consumers pumping up demand for goods and services was over, adding "and it is not going to come back any time soon".

If the minister's prediction is accurate, this year's Apec meeting may be remembered not so much as a turning point - China's rise as a global economic power has long been obvious - but as one that marked a historic shift in the balance of economic power from the Americas to Asia.

And with economic power comes political power.

Little wonder, then, that there is pressure from business in the US for the creation of a pan-Pacific free trade area including Asian and North and South American nations.

This is the big one. It will be extremely difficult to put together. But it would trump the developing matrix of free trade agreements Asian countries have negotiated between themselves - and which China wants to translate into an East Asian trade pact. That possibility must be giving the State Department in Washington the heebie-jeebies.

The trouble is that free trade agreements - especially one as potentially huge as the pan-Pacific one - are hard to sell in an economy like the US where foreign under-cutting of wages will lead, at least temporarily, to even more job losses.

That is why Barack Obama may say something - but not very much - about a Pacific-wide free trade agreement when he arrives in Singapore today.

He cannot say nothing. To do so would leave Apec's trade agenda in limbo.

For although the US economy is suffering and Washington is playing catch-up in pushing for a Pacific-wide free trade agreement, Asia still looks to Washington for a lead. If Asian countries don't get one, Apec will have suffered a crippling body blow.

As far as New Zealand is concerned, this shift in economic power is good news in English's view. New Zealand has a foot in both camps, being party to Asian free trade agreements - the latest one with Hong Kong being announced yesterday - and also being a founding member of the four-nation Trans Pacific Partnership free trade grouping.

For New Zealand, the big piece missing from what is being dubbed the "patchwork quilt" is a free trade agreement with Washington.

Obama may well decide that joining the TransPacific Partnership is a useful first step in constructing a far bigger trade pact, but one which does not raise hackles too high back home.

If he indicates such thinking while at Apec, they will be cracking open the champers in John Key's hotel suite. For the moment, however, it is very much a matter of fingers crossed until Obama speaks.