APEC to aim for breakthrough in WTO trade talks this year: draft

LIMA, Nov. 18 Kyodo -
Asia-Pacific economies will declare later this week in Peru that they will aim for an outline deal by the year's end to conclude the long-running free trade talks under the World Trade Organization, trade sources said Monday.

Leaders from the 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
forum are set to say in their declaration that they will ''instruct'' their
trade ministers in the region to ''engage to solve outstanding issues to reach
a full modalities agreement this year,'' one of the sources quoted the latest
draft of the statement as saying.
The senior official, speaking to Kyodo News on condition of anonymity, said the
United States is trying to strengthen the current expression and member
economies have not yet reached consensus on the final wording of the statement
for the two-day summit, to be held from Saturday in Lima.
Trade and foreign ministers of the region will meet Wednesday and Thursday,
also in the Peruvian capital, and they are set to send a similar message on the
WTO Doha Round of free trade negotiations, initiated in the Qatari capital in
2001, according to the sources.
APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the
Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and
Vietnam.
In Geneva, about 30 key WTO players agreed Monday to speed up their
preparations for a possible ministerial meeting by the end of this year,
diplomats said.
A meeting of ministers in July came close to a deal on key figures for tariff
cuts, or so-called modalities, but eventually broke down after the United
States clashed with China and India over the terms of how to protect farmers in
developing countries from a surge in imports.
==Kyodo