Peter Gallagher

It seems that the APEC Min­is­te­r­ial meet­ing in Hanoi has not sup­ported the pro­posal cham­pi­oned by Pres­i­dent Bush plus Fred Berg­sten and the APEC ‘busi­ness advi­sory’ com­mit­tee for a region-wide Free Trade Agree­ment of The Pacific. The APEC press release sug­gests, in the usual diplo­matic code, that the idea was “thumped”.

Del­e­gates had a lively dis­cus­sion on the idea of a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) as a long-term prospect and agreed to instruct senior offi­cials to con­duct study on this matter

Here’s another report of the debate via Reuters

The US pro­posal sparked robust debate that ended with the chair­man decid­ing the idea of a free trade area encom­pass­ing all 21 mem­bers should be stud­ied “as a long-term objec­tive”, Japan’s For­eign Min­istry spokesman Mit­suo Sak­aba told reporters.

But he added that the US ini­tia­tive to link Apec’s economies – which account for nearly half of world trade and gen­er­ate 70% of global eco­nomic growth – was appre­ci­ated. “We (the Japan­ese) wel­comed the US pro­posal for the FTA because we had the impres­sion that the US was los­ing inter­est in the Asia-Pacific. The pro­posal demon­strates its will­ing­ness to resume the Apec process,” he said.

Apec busi­ness lead­ers had ear­lier sup­ported the idea, say­ing it would have con­sol­i­dated mini-pacts that have pro­lif­er­ated in recent years, adding costs and com­plex­ity to doing busi­ness in the region. At least 50 FTAs have been agreed or are under dis­cus­sion among coun­tries rep­re­sented at Apec.