Bilateral, regional trade agreements on APEC agenda
Than Nien News | Vietnam | Sunday, May 28, 2006
Bilateral, regional trade agreements on APEC agenda
The ongoing APEC senior official meeting (SOM II) will discuss Sunday existing and new policies for regional trading agreements and free trade agreements (RTA/FTA), reports from the APEC secretariat said.
The meeting will be co-hosted by the president of APEC SOM in Vietnam, Deputy Foreign Minister Le Cong Phung, and David Spencer, Australia’s deputy secretary of foreign affairs and trade.
Bui Hong Duong of the APEC secretariat said Vietnam had decided to engage enterprises in this meeting to obtain their comments and ideas on RTAs/FTAs.
“RTA/FTAs have expanded to areas outside WTO’s scope like investment, trade and the environment, competition policy, government spending and labor,” he said explaining these were priorities for APEC.
The results of the meeting will be submitted to the Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT) meeting scheduled for June 1-2 in Ho Chi Minh City.
The SOM Committee of APEC Counterterrorism Task Force and Economic and Technical Cooperation (SCE) met on Friday.
At the SCE meeting delegates ratified the committee’s action plans for 2006, mapped out cooperation plans with international financial groups, and reviewed the Manila action plan for APEC, which was endorsed in 1996.
The meeting also endorsed the APEC handbook on counter-terrorism and agreed to hold two conferences in 2007 for economic intelligence officials and on initiatives food security.
Wang Xiaolong, chief of the Chinese contingent, said in an interview that China’s rich exposure to managing small and medium size enterprises brought helpful insights for Vietnam and the rest of the bloc.
Source: Tuoi tre - Translated by Thanh Tuan
