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Japan urges special

treatment in Asean

trade talks

CANBERRA: Japan called on Friday for November's APEC summit to consider special treatment for sensitive economic sectors to maintain the momentum of the grouping's free-trade push.

As the 18-member group struggles to agree on a blueprint for implementing the free-trade agreement struck at last year's summit, Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Hiroshi Hashimoto said APEC members might have to compromise on the original intention of comprehensive abolition of trade barriers across all sectors.

"While we understand the need or importance of the principle of comprehensiveness, sensitive sectors should be treated specially... ," Hashimoto said.

He told reporters each country had sensitive sectors "which... should be also taken into consideration".

APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, groups Australia, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.

APEC members such as Australia have said the free-trade pact, which would abolish trade barriers by the year 2010 for APEC's developed nations and by 2020 for developing countries, should apply to all sectors.

But other members have lobbied for concessions or exemptions in difficult sectors, particularly agriculture.

Hashimoto told reporters Tokyo was under domestic political pressure to avoid further liberalisation in agriculture, after reducing protection in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Japan, which will chair the November summit, wanted the meeting to agree on a programme for implementing the free-trade agreement, but it must be a programme acceptable to all APEC members, Hashimoto said.

"Japan, as chair, wants APEC to be very successful and we will continue our utmost efforts to prepare an action agenda (to) which all the APEC members can agree," he said.

"We have got to take into consideration the stage of economic development, there are weaker economies in the Asia-Pacific," he said.

"Therefore, if we force a very drastic liberalisation plan, some members may feel that it's too much for us, we can't stay, we can't live with it," he said.

"We don't want to see that happen."

Senior Japanese and Australian ministers are meeting in the Australian capital, Canberra, for the latest in a series of regular talks of the Australia-Japan Ministerial Committee.

While APEC dominated talk at the meeting, the ministers also discussed regional security, French and Chinese nuclear test programmes, trade access, bilateral trade and investment and other bilateral and regional issues.

Hashimoto said Japan had asked Australia to abandon its offsets programme, which Tokyo said breaches international free-trade rules under the World Trade Organisation.

The offsets programme requires foreign winners of government contracts to buy Australian products.

The delegations are led by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans and his Japanese counterpart, Yohei Kono.-Reuter