Agence France Presse | BY MARTIN ABBUGAO | September 2, 2003
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN -- Asia-Pacific business leaders, experts and economic officials began a meeting here Tuesday amid fears that bilateral and regional pacts could impede efforts toward a more liberalised global trading regime.
Brunei's leader Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, speaking late Monday at a welcome dinner for the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) meeting delegates, urged participants to ensure that such trading arrangements support multilateralism under the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The impact of regional and bilateral free trade accords, whose numbers have been increasing in the Asia-Pacific region, is a key topic in the PECC sessions ahead of the September 10-14 WTO ministerial talks in Cancun, Mexico.
Negotiators hope to make progress in Cancun toward a more liberalised global trading environment by tearing down tariff and other barriers in areas such as agriculture and services. But bitter disagreements between the richer and poorer countries threaten to block any major movement.
The PECC, an advisory body to governments in the Asia-Pacific region, includes top think-tank experts, corporate leaders and officials.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi are scheduled to address the PECC delegates Wednesday, the final day of their plenary meeting in Brunei's capital.
"In a few days, the WTO ministerial meeting will be taking place in Cancun. One pressing matter that I know you have been working on is particularly sensitive," Brunei's Sultan Hassanal said.
"This is the emergence of an increasing number of bilateral, regional and cross-regional trading arrangements. It is sometimes called a 'newer regionalism.'
"It could well present a basic challenge to the concept of 'open regionalism.' It could certainly impede our efforts at community building and economic development."
Hassanal said however that "realities" dictated that such bilateral and regional trading arrangements were here to stay.
"If so, how can we ensure that such pursuits are transparent and constructive? How can we be confident that they indeed form building blocs for freer trade?" he asked.
Even the the administration of US President George W. Bush is already tempering expectations from the Cancun meeting as the deep divisions throw a January 1, 2005 deadline for final agreement into serious doubt, senior trade analysts based in Washington said.
The analysts said a deal is more likely to come in 2007, if at all.
WTO trade ministers had set the 2005 deadline in November 2001 when they launched the agenda for the talks in the Qatari capital of Doha.
A World Bank report presented at a PECC workshop here on Monday said the success of the Doha Agenda to tear down trade barriers in sensitive economic sectors such as agriculture and services would raise incomes, reduce poverty and speed up growth.
Incomes could rise by 270 billion to 520 billion US dollars, and the number of people mired in poverty could be cut by about 140 million people, many of them in Africa.
"But to realise (the) development promise, an agreement has to reduce barriers to the products the poor (countries) produce," the bank said.
It noted that developing countries have failed to penetrate agricultural markets of rich nations and protectionism in industrialised countries has remained high since the previous Uruguay Round of global trade talks.
Middle-income nations, however, must also be willing to lower tariffs, while poor countries should rely less on preferential treatment and carry out reforms in trade-related institutions, the bank added.Agence France Presse:
