New Zealand calls for broadening WTO agenda
June 29, 1999
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND - AP World News via NewsEdge Corporation : A meeting of Pacific Rim trade ministers hit trouble before it even started, with conflicting targets emerging over what should be included in the next round of world trade talks.
Senior U.S. trade delegates and host nation New Zealand on Monday launched a push to broaden the agenda for the so-called millennium round of World Trade Organization talks, urging Pacific Rim nations to back a plan to accelerate tariff reductions on a range of industrial goods.
But the plan was immediately rejected by the Philippines, whose trade representative said the proposed talks in Seattle in November should be tightly restricted.
U.S. trade representatives Richard Fisher and Susan Esserman, standing in for top U.S. trade representative Charlene Barshefsky who could not attend for personal reasons, said the current round of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum talks would help set the agenda for the WTO talks.
''This APEC meeting will be a key meeting for helping to set the agenda for the WTO,'' Esserman said before the official opening of a two-day meeting of APEC trade ministers.
''The challenge will be in determining the WTO agenda is what negotiations will proceed in addition to the built-in agenda, (namely) agriculture and services,'' she said.
''An emerging are of consensus is that industrial tariffs are to be an area for negotiations.''
New Zealand Trade Minister Lockwood Smith said forestry and fisheries were two industries which should be on the agenda for the WTO, and urged officials from APEC's 21 member countries to broaden the agenda.
But Philippines Trade Secretary Jose Pardo told Dow Jones Newswires that his country wants to restrict the next round of trade talks to agriculture, services and intellectual property rights.
He said the United States agrees with this position.
''The signal we're getting from the U.S. is that the WTO should be very focused,'' Pardo said.
''There will be no agreement'' on a common stance towards the WTO talks emerging from the current APEC round, he said.
An APEC leaders summit is scheduled for September.
APEC trade officials were greeted Tuesday by a traditional Maori welcome called a Powhiri, which included pressing noses with a welcoming party in a custom called Hongi.
Officials then went into the first session of closed meetings.
The last leaders' summit in Kuala Lumpur sought a free-trade agreement which would have slashed tariffs on dlrs U.S. 1.5 trillion in world trade.
But Japanese opposition to cutting tariffs on the forestry and fisheries industries forced APEC to send the plan to the WTO for resolution.
APEC is ultimately aiming for free trade among its developed members by 2010 and full free trade by 2020.
Smith said APEC trade ministers had not softened their commitment to freeing up trade, but ''some member economies have some political difficulties that are slowing progress.''
APEC's members include the world's three largest economies, and in total the economies involved produce more than half of the world's economic output.
APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
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