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APEC warns against protectionism

LIMA: Pacific Rim nations struggled on Sunday to restore confidence in the world’s ailing financial system, wrapping up a summit that focused on guarding against protectionism and resuscitating moribund free-trade talks.

In two days of meetings, the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum endorsed a blueprint worked out at a summit of top economies in Washington, but stopped short of new proposals to ward off a punishing global recession.

The leaders, who represent more than half the world’s economic power, held a last-minute series of bilateral meetings on Sunday before going behind closed doors to finalise a broad 12-point joint declaration. While such summits have in the past focused on a grab bag of issues, this year’s meeting has been dominated by the world’s economic meltdown.

On Saturday, APEC nations, including those not represented at the Washington summit, endorsed the conclusions of that meeting. Those included a pledge to resist domestic pressures to protect industries, while ensuring that small- and medium-sized companies have enough credit to stay afloat.

The nations, which include the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, also pledged to reach agreement next month on the outlines of a World Trade Organisation pact that collapsed in July after seven years of negotiations. Concern over the global financial crisis injected new urgency into the Doha round of trade talks. The leaders called for greater APEC participation in the IMF and other multilateral lenders. The summit was expected to be the final foreign trip for George W. Bush as U.S. President. President-elect Barack Obama takes office January 20, and delegates in Lima said there was little incentive to propose more concrete action without his presence.

“I think the very understandable concern of these foreign governments is, will the new administration do some sort of policy review,” said Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council. — AP

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