Apec endorses free trade roadmap

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit has endorsed a Beijing-backed route towards a vast free trade area in the region, its host Xi Jinping said on Tuesday, calling it a ‘historic’ step. The Apec meeting also saw a flurry of diplomatic activity, with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin – often criticised by the west – meeting his US counterpart, Barack Obama, and, separately, the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott. A day earlier Xi had met Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe, in the first formal leaders’ meeting for nearly 3 years between the Asian neighbours, who have an often difficult relationship. China has been keen to underscore its rising trade and diplomatic clout during the summit, at a lakeside venue north of the Chinese capital, and Xi said the bloc had ‘approved the roadmap for Apec to promote and realise the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific’. He called it a historic step reflecting the ‘confidence and commitment of Apec members to promote the integration of the regional economy”, and symbolising “the official launch of the process towards the FTAAP’. The FTAAP would build on other initiatives including the smaller US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but China’s firm advocacy of the plan over TPP has added to Sino-US trade rivalry, according to a news agency.