Fresh from adopting a multipronged strategy to weather financial turmoil in crisis talks in Washington, US President George W. Bush and other leaders are expected to advance a similar initiative at a key Asia-Pacific summit this week.

Bush and leaders of Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Mexico who attended the Group of 20 financial crisis summit at the weekend will participate at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum meeting in Lima, Peru on 21-23 November.

The G20 leaders announced a series of actions to stabilize the financial system, stimulate economic gowth, help emerging and developing economies battered by the crisis, and strengthen the financial regulatory framework.

Critical to containing the crisis

"Obviously, the leaders and their officials who attended the emergency G20 summit here are expected to brief their other Apec counterparts of the decisions that have been taken here, which are critical to containing the global crisis," an Asian diplomat involved in Apec affairs told AFP.

Feedback from the 21-member Apec grouping, which makes up half of global trade, is crucial in reviewing the impementation of the decisions taken in Washington ahead of the next G20 summit by 30 April, the official said.

"We've directed our finance ministers to work with other experts and consult with officials in other economies and then report back to the leaders with detailed recommendations," Bush said at the end of the summit of the G20 group of industrialized and developing nations.

Aside from the nine nations represented at the G20, Apec comprises Brunei, Chile, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

It is not clear yet whether the Apec leaders would adopt key components of the G20 declaration after their Lima retreat, but indications are that they would send a strong signal to free up trade and investment — a key objective of the Apec forum — and to reject protectionism.

Positive message

"A positive message that Apec could send to the rest of the world could be, for example, a declaration stating that we will not increase our barriers to trade until the financial problem is solved," said Peru's Trade Minister Mercedes Araoz.

"Another message could be the reiteration of Apec's strong support for the prompt finalization of the Doha Development Round," of the global trade negotiations, he said in an Apec report ahead of the summit.

Leaders at the G20 summit agreed to refrain from imposing any new trade and investment barriers for the next 12 months — even if such barriers may be consistent with existing World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations.

They also agreed to work towards an agreement this year on modalities that could lead to a successful Doha Round.

Tempting times

"This is a very important part of this summit," Bush said. "The temptation in times of economic stress will be to say, 'oh, trade isn't worth it, let's just throw up protective barriers.' And yet that attitude was rejected, thankfully."

"And matter of fact, not only rejected, there is a determined effort to see if we can't complete the modalities for Doha by the end of December," he said.

Bush decided to host the G20 meeting in Washington in large part because of the long scheduled Apec meeting, with a number of Asian G20 leaders already planning to come to the Western Hemisphere, said Patricia Haslach, a senior US Apec envoy.

"The Apec leaders' summit itself offers an opportunity to make this case and to reaffirm our commitment to free and open trade and investment," she said.

AFP

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