PM off to push free trade at Apec

By AUDREY YOUNG

New Zealand will be at the forefront of a move at the Apec summit in Santiago, Chile, this week to promote a free trade agreement among economies in the Asia Pacific region, says Prime Minister Helen Clark.

The idea is being promoted by the Apec Business Advisory Council.

Helen Clark said yesterday that free trade agreements were proliferating in the region among members and countries outside Apec and "a variety of different benchmarks" were being reached in the deals.

That was making it more unlikely that the so-called Bogor goals of trade liberalisation within Apec - by 2010 for developed countries and by 2020 for developing countries - would be met.

"If a number of sub-optimal agreements are signed, it makes it harder to reach the Bogor goals so I think [the council] was right to put that on the leaders' agenda," the Prime Minister said.

"They will probably find New Zealand at the forefront of saying their proposal for a free trade agreement of the Asia Pacific is worth looking at as a way of getting a best-practice set of agreements."

Although there had not been a lot of movement towards the Bogor goals set in 1993 "the vision is right and the more progress you make towards it the better".

She detected that in the run-up to 2010 "minds are a little more focused on how it might be met".

Helen Clark is planning to have formal bilateral meetings with the leaders of Chile, China, Peru, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia and an informal meeting with United States President George W. Bush on the margins of the conference, where she will raise the issue of a free trade agreement.

"I'll be saying to him that New Zealand remains interested in going down the same free trade agreement path as Australia has successfully with the United States and that we have maintained our presence among key constituencies in Washington ... and that at some point we hope it might be possible to do business."

She said the pair had had discussions at every summit they had attended.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff and Trade Minister Jim Sutton left last night for Santiago to meet their counterparts from Apec countries before the leaders' meeting.

Helen Clark leaves on Thursday.

* New Zealand's representatives on the Apec council are Peter Masfen, executive chairman of Montana Group, Wendy Pye, managing director of the Wendy Pye Group, and Sir Dryden Spring, chairman of Fletcher Challenge Forests.