Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam Bui Thanh Son (Source: VNA) The APEC Senior Officials Meeting(SOM) Dialogue on RTAs/FTAs brought together APEC senior officials, officialobservers, speakers, and representatives from the businesses community.
According to statisticsreleased by the APEC Secretariat, as of December 2016, more than 150 RTAs/FTAssigned by at least one APEC member economy has gone into effect with nearly 60intra-APEC agreements.
Thanks to theirimpacts, intra-APEC trade has increased by 174 percent, from 2.3 trillion USDto 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 APEC2017 SOM Chair, said over half of the world’s FTAs originates from theAsia-Pacific region.
APEC is naturally the best platform todiscuss FTAs/RTAs, he said,noting that for the past 30 years, RTAs/FTAs in theAPEC 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 majorimplications, he said.
Regional economicintegration 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), Sonsaid.
In the context ofpositive signs of regional and global economic recovery, making the most ofbenefits from RTAs/FTAs is important to create new dynamism for economicgrowth, as well as trade and investment in the region, he noted.
Sonhighlighted the enormous static and dynamic benefits of FTAs on economicgrowth, market access, FDI attraction or domestic institutional reforms.
However,he said, in the current regional and global economic context and under theimpacts of the fourth industrial revolution, the question is how to make themost of the socio-economic benefits that FTAs bring about, concurrently withmitigating adverse impacts arising from adjustment costs, and increasing incomedisparity.
Additionally,given the economical, political and developmental diversities in the APEC,sharing of information, experiences and engaging in negotiations and conclusionof RTAs/FTAs is useful, practical and necessary for mutual economicdevelopment, social stability and shared prosperity for the whole of the Asia -Pacific region, he said.
Thedelegates mulled over the engagement of stakeholders in RTA/FTAs, lessonslearnt from RTAs/FTAs and impact assessments, and continued work for the APEC,including the work programme to implement the Lima Declaration on the FTAAP.
TheAPEC is in the process of realising the Bogor Goals of trade and investmentliberalization and facilitation by 2020 as well as shaping an APEC vision forthe realisation of a FTAAP.-VNA
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