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  APEC meetings open with talk of Pacific Rim FTA
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Last Editedkal  Nov 09, 2010 05:58am
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News DateTuesday, November 9, 2010 11:00:00 AM UTC0:0
DescriptionOfficials from 21 Pacific Rim economies, including the U.S., China and Japan, began meetings Sunday that could move toward a bold goal — creating a Pacific-wide free trade zone.

The series of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings this week in Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, will culminate next weekend in a summit bringing together President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and 18 other leaders.

According to a draft of APEC's final communique obtained by The Associated Press, the leaders will agree to take "concrete steps toward realization of Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP)" encompassing all 21 members around the Pacific.

But some members, such as Indonesia, are cool to the idea and experts say it may be unrealistic given APEC's diverse membership, which ranges from impoverished Papua New Guinea to behemoths China and the United States. Also, APEC is not a negotiating body, so any trade pact would have to occur in a parallel forum.

The draft sets no timeframe for achieving such a Pacific-wide FTA. But as a building block toward that goal it points to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement that the U.S. and four other nations — Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Peru — are negotiating to join. The TPP currently consists of four small economies: Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore.

Japan, worried that it is falling behind regional rival South Korea in forging free trade deals, is intensely debating whether to join the TPP talks. Business leaders have urged Tokyo to do so, but farmers fiercely oppose the move out of fear that a flood of cheap agricultural imports would wipe them out.

While the APEC meetings' agenda will focus on promoting trade and investment, political issues are sure to crop up in meetings between foreign ministers and leaders on the sidelines later this week.
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