Senior Officials Conclude First Day of Meetings
APEC Senior Officials have concluded the first day of discussions in preparation for the APEC Ministers and Leaders meetings that will take place this week.
During the informal session today Officials discussed APEC's role in progressing the DDA round of WTO negotiations, the possibility of establishing a Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific, inputs to the Ha Noi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap, APEC reform, Model Measures for FTAs/RTAs, and the latest developments in the work of the APEC Counter Terrorism Task Force.
The informal session was chaired by Vice Minister Le Cong Phung, who opened the meeting by highlighting the value of the Concluding SOM Meeting for contributing to the success of the APEC Viet Nam year.
In discussions on advancing the current round of WTO negotiations, APEC Member Economies discussed ways to advance WTO discussions for conclusion by next year. Delegates agreed to propose that Leaders issue a stand-alone statement that will include strong language calling for an early resumption of the negotiations.
APEC Member Economies have made a commitment and provided substantial input to assist WTO members to unblock negotiations.
The potential for establishing a Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) region was discussed today with APEC Member Economies agreeing that the prospect of the FTAAP is worthy of further discussion.
In agreeing that there was room to further discuss the potential of an FTAAP, Senior Officials were specific in highlighting that any such effort would need to be in line with APEC's overall free and open trade and investment goals and complement the multilateral trading system.
The issue of individual FTAs/RTAs was taken up by Senior Officials in relation to discussion of proposed model measures. When developed, these model measures will be endorsed by APEC to assist Member Economies to develop more transparent and effective FTAs/RTAs.
Senior Officials also finalized their recommendations on the Ha Noi Action Plan that will now be presented for consideration by Ministers. The action plan will provide concrete plans for implementing the "Busan Roadmap towards achieving the Bogor Goals" that was agreed by Leaders in Busan last year.
The plan relates to elements that constitute core components in APEC's work to reach the Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment in the APEC Region by 2010 for industrialized economies and 2020 for developing economies. These areas include support for the multilateral trading system, strengthening of CAPs and IAPs, promotion of high quality FTAs/RTAs, implementation of the business agenda in the region and capacity building.
Member Economies also reviewed progress in intellectual property rights work and agreed on two new model guidelines in addition to three existing ones of the anti-counterfeiting and piracy initiative. The new model guidelines include one for effective public awareness campaigns and another to secure supply chains against counterfeit and pirated goods.
Senior Officials agreed on the list of 2006 counter-terrorism deliverables to be submitted to Ministers for endorsement. These include the Food Defense Initiative and outcomes of the Food Defense Workshop held in Bangkok from 1-3 November, 2006; the initiative to organize Counter-terrorism Financing Workshops; and the APEC Counter-Terrorism Review handbook. Delegates also endorsed the inclusion of the business resumption points of contact and aviation security points of contact in the TFEP Register of Pandemic and Disaster Management Coordinators and the nomination of Ambassador Park Sang-ki of Korea as the new CTTF Chair following the conclusion of the two-year term by the current Chair, Ambassador Benjamin Defensor.
The Senior Officials Meeting will continue tomorrow with a plenary session before the APEC Ministerial Meeting on November 15-16, and the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on November 18-19.