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Submitted by ctv_en_3 on Sun, 05/28/2006 - 18:00
Business leaders and government officials from APEC member economies met in Ho Chi Minh City on May 28 to clarify the business relevance of Regional Trade Agreements and Free Trade Agreements (RTAs/FTAs).

The 2006 APEC Policy Dialogue on RTAs/FTAs was the first to involve business representatives that included leading executives from FedEx, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Mexican Trade Business Organisation Network.


FedEx Express Managing Director and United States alternative representative to the APEC Business Advisory Council, Ralph Carter, highlighted the business community’s wish that the current WTO negotiations would produce a comprehensive agreement.

“Most businesses, if offered a choice, would prefer to liberalise trade through the multilateral or WTO approach,” Mr Carter said at the dialogue meeting. “However, the results of the Doha round has shown us that the WTO process is becoming much more difficult.”


“Free trade agreements are therefore an important compliment to the WTO and can be quite successful in stimulating trade. FTAs can open up new markets, expand investment opportunities, lower the cost of doing business and provide important legal protections for investors and operators.”


Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Cong Phung highly valued RTAs and FTAs to APEC’s ultimate goals.

“We acknowledge that high quality RTAs/FTAs are important avenues to achieve free and open trade and investment and we are pursuing work to ensure high quality, transparency and broad consistency in RTAs/FTAs in the region,” said Mr Phung.

The meeting has been the fourth dialogue by APEC Senior Officials on RTAs/FTAs since the issue was formally included on the APEC Agenda in 2003. APEC has already established a comprehensive database of information on RTAs/FTAs undertaken by APEC members, that is now available on APEC website at www.apec.org.


The proliferation of RTAs/FTAs in recent years has seen the signing of 34 RTAs/FTAs in the APEC region and around 325 RTAs/FTAs worldwide that have been presented to the GATT and WTO. Of these more than 200 were reached over the last 11 years. By the end of 2005, the WTO reported that more than 51 percent of all world merchandise was traded under preferential agreements.

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