APEC trade ministers discuss regional trade integration

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CAIRNS, Australia, July 9 (CEIS): The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministers responsible for trade discussed various ways to achieve free trade in the Asia-Pacific region at their 13th meeting which ended here recently.
The ministers from APEC economies, which account for close to half of world trade and are a major and growing component of the world economy, had a broad-ranging and constructive discussion about ways and means to promote regional economic integration.
"We discussed various ways to achieve free trade in the region, including the possibility of developing a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) as a long term prospect," said the ministers in a final joint ministerial statement released at the end of the two-day meeting.
The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to APEC's 1994 declaration in Bogor, Indonesia, which set the goal of achieving free and open trade and investment in the Pacific Rim by the year 2020.
"We agreed that the time is right to further examine the prospect for an FTAAP, including its implications," said the ministers.
They have also agreed that scope exists for more intensive activity across APEC's agenda in support of regional economic integration.
However, the ministers did not set specific proposals on how to reach the trade goal in the region that accounts for 60 per cent of global economic activity, stressing it was a long-term goal.
The ministers also in their statement highlighted the strong support for the multilateral trading system, the need for strong and early action on climate change and balancing environmental concerns against economic growth.