NZ behind alternative trade deal

By AUDREY YOUNG


Trade Minister Jim Sutton says a new free trade proposal New Zealand is backing at the Apec meeting in Chile this week may be "too radical" for Asia.

Mr Sutton and Foreign Minister Phil Goff begin meetings today in the Chilean capital, Santiago, with their 21 Apec counterparts ahead of the leaders' arrival for the weekend summit.

They will be taking soundings for the free trade initiative, promoted by the Apec Business Advisory Council, a group appointed by the Apec leaders.

Mr Sutton said the proposal, a standardised free trade agreement among willing Apec nations, might be a more realistic alternative than achieving Apec's so-called Bogor goals of free trade by 2010 for developed countries and 2020 for developing countries.

"[The council], I guess, reflects a growing feeling that we haven't made enough progress to give ourselves a realistic prospect of meeting the Bogor timeline," Mr Sutton said.

"Perhaps we should stop trying to do it by flying in formation and start to negotiate a binding timetable."

At present, progress towards the Bogor goals is made by way of peer review of each country's commitment to liberalise trade and business rules which, Mr Sutton said, reflected an Asian way of operating.

"My feeling is that the way that Apec operates is by the incremental building up of consensus and this [an Apec free trade agreement] might be a bit radical to take in one lump."

He said Apec would probably need to think about it and talk about it for a few years before adopting it "and it might be that they never adopt it".

But another attraction was that it was "putting in place a collective Plan B in the event the Doha round fails".

Mr Goff said there would again be a strong counter-terrorism agenda at the Apec meetings and a discussion about non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, issues which some countries were not comfortable discussing in such a forum.

Mr Goff is expecting an informal meeting with retiring US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday hosted a working lunch in Auckland with the Singapore Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, who was en route to Chile.