[asia-apec 397] Re: [PEN-L:10065] APEC

[Gatt Watchdog]

>From tofu!sfu.ca!shniad Tue May 13 12:54:34 1997 remote from corso
Received: by corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (1.65/waf)
	via UUCP; Tue, 13 May 97 15:44:47 +1200
	for gattwd
Received: from kauri.lincoln.ac.nz by tofu.ch.planet.gen.nz with smtp
	(Smail3.1.28.1 #3) id m0wR5rN-0004dIa; Tue, 13 May 97 12:54 NZST
Received: from whio.lincoln.ac.nz (whio.lincoln.ac.nz)
 by kauri.lincoln.ac.nz (PMDF V5.0-6 #16131)
 id <0EA3HGS5D000B8 at kauri.lincoln.ac.nz>; Tue, 13 May 1997 13:00 +1200 (NZS)
Received: from WHIO/SpoolDir by whio.lincoln.ac.nz (Mercury 1.31); Tue,
 13 May 1997 13:03:24 +1200
Received: from SpoolDir by WHIO (Mercury 1.31); Tue, 13 May 1997 13:02:54 +1200
Received: from SpoolDir by WHIO (Mercury 1.31); Tue, 13 May 1997 12:58:00 +1200
Received: from kauri.lincoln.ac.nz by whio.lincoln.ac.nz (Mercury 1.31)
 with ESMTP; Tue, 13 May 1997 12:57:40 +1200
Received: from anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu (anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu)
 by kauri.lincoln.ac.nz (PMDF V5.0-6 #16131)
 id <0EA3H7214000B8 at kauri.lincoln.ac.nz> for rosenber at whio.lincoln.ac.nz; Tue,
 13 May 1997 12:54 +1200 (NZS)
Received: from anthrax (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu
 (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA07364; Mon, 12 May 1997 17:52:03 -0700 (PDT)
Resent-date: Tue, 13 May 1997 13:02:46 +1200
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 17:52:03 -0700 (PDT)
Resent-from: "Rosenberg, Bill" <rosenber at whio.lincoln.ac.nz>
From: D Shniad <shniad at sfu.ca>
Subject: [PEN-L:10065] APEC
Sender: pen-l at anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu
Resent-to: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz, cafca at chch.planet.co.nz
To: Multiple recipients of list <pen-l at anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu>
Errors-to: mperelman at facultypo.csuchico.edu
Reply-to: pen-l at anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu
Resent-message-id: <0EA3HGU5J000B8 at kauri.lincoln.ac.nz>
Message-id: <199705130048.RAA04532 at fraser>
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
Precedence: bulk
Originator: pen-l at anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu
X-Comment: Progressive Economics
X-Listprocessor-version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas

The Globe and Mail 				Monday, May 12, 1997

APEC takes on key trade role:

ASIA-PACIFIC NATIONS AGREE TO MOVE QUICKLY TO 
OPEN MARKETS IN UP TO 15 ECONOMIC SECTORS 

	By  Laura Eggertson

The Asia-Pacific countries have transformed their trade group from a chat club 
into a powerhouse that will sidestep the World Trade Organization and set the 
agenda on opening global markets to goods and services.

By the end of a three-day meeting in Montreal on Saturday, the 18 members of 
the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum had agreed to try and eliminate 
global tariffs for as many as 15 new economic sectors, ranging from 
automobiles to environmental technology.

"The significance of this meeting is that APEC has decided it should play 
the critical catalyst role on sectoral opening," U.S. Trade Representative 
Charlene Barshefsky said on Saturday.

APEC members, which include Canada and the United States, account for 
about half the flow of goods and services around the world. Although APEC 
is a voluntary organization that reaches non-binding decisions by 
consensus, it will now take on greater prominence in the world trade scene.

Members have decided to move quickly to identify specific products and 
services for which they can eliminate duties and quotas, instead of waiting for 
another interminable round of negotiations on global free trade at the World 
Trade Organization.

The products and services chosen are closely driven by the private sector, 
through a business advisory group.

"One of APEC's key features [is] its close collaboration with business on the 
trade agenda," federal Trade Minister Art Eggleton said at the close of the 
meeting Saturday.

Once a significant number of APEC countries have agreed on the outline 
of a deal, negotiations can be moved to the WTO -- the more unwieldy 
trade watchdog, which has 130 member countries. The last group of global 
negotiations, known as the Uruguay Round, took seven years to complete.

WTO agreements are binding and subject to dispute settlement. The United 
States and Canada have been pushing for APEC to gain more prominence 
because they believe it's easier to get deals among a smaller group of countries 
which are large enough to carry enough weight to intervene on the world scene. 
The Asia-Pacific nations have set a deadline for free trade among them -- 
2010 for the developed countries and 2020 for developing nations.

Politically, the U.S. administration has been criticized in Congress and by right-
wing Republicans such as Pat Buchanan for surrendering sovereignty to the 
WTO. Drafting trade deals under APEC -- a less-visible, less-structured 
organization -- would remove some of the political heat.

"It's a question of efficiency," Ms. Barshefsky said about using APEC as a 
vehicle for the critical first negotiations. "We have to be practical and APEC 
must show results."

Senior APEC trade officials, who are meeting this week in Quebec City, will 
now begin examining the 15 new sectors for which ministers think they can 
reach quick agreements.

Besides automobiles and environmental technology, they include chemicals and 
pulp and paper products. Not all 15 will end up with agreements, officials 
cautioned.

Renato Ruggiero, director-general of the WTO, praised APEC for its "valuable 
energizing role" in economic relations.

"As the Asia-Pacific region becomes more and more important in the world 
economy, so the impact of what you decide in APEC assumes a greater global 
significance," he told the Montreal conference.

The first of the new initiatives is likely to be an expanded agreement on 
information technology. About 40 countries representing 93 per cent of the $1-
trillion (U.S.) world trade in computers and software agreed earlier this spring 
to end tariffs on the goods.

The APEC ministers now want to create an "information technology 
agreement" that would add more countries and expand the range of products 
covered by the deal. That should further lower the costs of hardware and 
software and other products such as cash registers, photocopiers and automated 
teller machines.

The Montreal meeting and a leaders' summit that Canada is slated to host in 
Vancouver in November are also expected to accelerate talks toward a deal on 
financial services, which  would eliminate restrictions that now make it difficult 
for banks and insurance companies to operate globally.  Countries have a Dec. 
15 deadline to reach that deal.

Washington scuppered the last attempt to reach a deal on financial services by 
pulling out, saying that other countries' offers were not enough to justify 
opening the U.S. market. Ms. Barshefsky made it clear that the United States 
wants countries to open their banks and institutions to majority foreign 
ownership and to branch banking. She also emphasized that if Latin American 
and Asian countries don't improve their offers by mid-July, the United States 
will withdraw again.

Such a deal could have widespread implications for Canadian institutions, 
leaving them open to mergers or takeovers if current regulations that prevent 
individuals from owning more than 10 per cent of the shares were to be 
changed.

Critics of the global trade organizations are worried that the new 
acceleration by APEC is being driven by multinational corporations 
without regard for environmental harm, labour standards or human 
rights.

Demonstrators in Montreal pointed to the imprisonment in Indonesia, an APEC 
country, of top trade unionist Muchtar Pakpahan.

"This is a move by our government to fast-track world free trade," Maude 
Barlow of the Council of Canadians said yesterday in an interview from 
Ottawa.

The council is concerned that deals reached through APEC will not be 
subject to the same scrutiny as those negotiated through the WTO or, 
previously, the North American free-trade agreement.

"There's no agreement that has to be signed [at APEC], it doesn't have to 
go to the legislatures. Most people don't have the faintest idea that it 
exists," Ms. Barlow said.

Organizations including the Canadian Labour Congress, Amnesty International 
and the Council of Canadians will attempt to keep social and rights issues high 
on the agenda in Vancouver by holding parallel conferences there in the fall.

But Mr. Eggleton rejected the idea of discussing the issues in Vancouver or 
Montreal.

"There are other forums to discuss that, where there are people knowledgeable 
in those areas," he said. "This is a trade forum."

The other APEC countries are Australia, Brunei, Chile, China, Hong Kong, 
Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the 
Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.  Together, they 
produce almost 60 per cent of the world's gross domestic product and account 
for 46 per cent of merchandise trade.