APEC economies share experience in engaging in RTAs/FTAs
APEC officials shared views and experience in negotiating, concluding and implementing regional trade agreements (RTAs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) at a dialogue in Ho Chi Minh City on August 27.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam Bui Thanh Son (Source: VNA)
HCM City (VNA) –
APEC officials shared views and experience in negotiating, concluding and
implementing regional trade agreements (RTAs) and free trade agreements (FTAs)
at a dialogue in Ho Chi Minh City on August 27. The APEC Senior Officials Meeting
(SOM) Dialogue on RTAs/FTAs brought together APEC senior officials, official
observers, speakers, and representatives from the businesses community.
According to statistics
released by the APEC Secretariat, as of December 2016, more than 150 RTAs/FTAs
signed by at least one APEC member economy has gone into effect with nearly 60
intra-APEC agreements.
Thanks to their
impacts, intra-APEC trade has increased by 174 percent, from 2.3 trillion USD
to 6.3 trillion USD during the 2000 – 2016 period.
In his opening remarks,
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam Bui Thanh Son, who is also APEC
2017 SOM Chair, said over half of the world’s FTAs originates from the
Asia-Pacific region.
APEC is naturally the best platform to
discuss FTAs/RTAs, he said,
noting that for the past 30 years, RTAs/FTAs in the
APEC region have flourished in number, scope of work and sophistication.
Increasingly sophisticated,
next-generation regional FTAs, addressing next-generation trade and investment,
behind-the-border and non-tariff measures issues are being developed with major
implications, he said.
Regional economic
integration will continue to be one of APEC’s core cooperation pillars,
including fostering RTAs/FTAs and with a view to the realisation of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), Son
said.
In the context of
positive signs of regional and global economic recovery, making the most of
benefits from RTAs/FTAs is important to create new dynamism for economic
growth, as well as trade and investment in the region, he noted.
Son
highlighted the enormous static and dynamic benefits of FTAs on economic
growth, market access, FDI attraction or domestic institutional reforms.
However,
he said, in the current regional and global economic context and under the
impacts of the fourth industrial revolution, the question is how to make the
most of the socio-economic benefits that FTAs bring about, concurrently with
mitigating adverse impacts arising from adjustment costs, and increasing income
disparity.
Additionally,
given the economical, political and developmental diversities in the APEC,
sharing of information, experiences and engaging in negotiations and conclusion
of RTAs/FTAs is useful, practical and necessary for mutual economic
development, social stability and shared prosperity for the whole of the Asia -
Pacific region, he said.
The
delegates mulled over the engagement of stakeholders in RTA/FTAs, lessons
learnt from RTAs/FTAs and impact assessments, and continued work for the APEC,
including the work programme to implement the Lima Declaration on the FTAAP.
The
APEC is in the process of realising the Bogor Goals of trade and investment
liberalization and facilitation by 2020 as well as shaping an APEC vision for
the realisation of a FTAAP.-VNA