YOKOHAMA, Japan — Pacific Rim economies are debating whether to give APEC the power to negotiate free-trade pacts, a move that could pave the way for a massive free-trade zone that lowers tariffs on goods from electronics to food.
Members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum — including top economies the U.S., China and Japan — are using their annual gathering this week to discuss changing the toothless organization into one with enough authority to negotiate a binding Pacific-wide free-trade agreement, Japanese officials said Monday.
If realized, it would encompass 44 percent of global trade and more than half the world economy.
But it also has the potential to batter farmers in countries such as Japan and South Korea, where an array of agricultural products are protected by high tariffs.
Leaders — including President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao gathering this weekend in Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, for the APEC summit — will agree to take steps toward such a sweeping free-trade agreement, according to a draft of the final communique obtained by The Associated Press. It gave no time frame.
But to forge such a trade treaty, APEC would have to become a negotiating body, a big change from what it is now — a forum started in 1989 to promote trade and investment throughout the Pacific but without any real powers.
APEC members such as the U.S. and Japan are in favor of moving toward the Pacific-wide free-trade area — officially known as the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific — but others such as Indonesia and the Philippines are reluctant, preferring to keep it as a vague, long-term goal.
