Apec pushes for free trade boost
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Leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific states pledge to bolster anti-terrorism measures and efforts to lower trade barriers.
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Representatives of 21 Pacific Rim economies are in Santiago, Chile for preliminary meetings leading up to this weekend&#39;s meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
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The leaders of 10 Southeast Asian countries have reached an agreement with China that will lead to the creation of the world&#39;s largest free trade zone.
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SANTIAGO - High level talks on free trade and global security got underway in the Chilean capital, as ministers from 21 Pacific Rim countries convened for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit.
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SINGAPORE Southeast Asian trade ministers moved ahead over the weekend with plans to fuse their region into a European-style community hefty enough to compete with China and India, setting timetables for free-trade talks with Japan, South Korea, Australia
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SANTIAGO: Asia-Pacific leaders on Sunday ducked a call to study creating an ambitious free trade area for the region. In a joint declaration, they &quot;welcomed&quot; the proposal from big business but failed to adopt it.
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Leaders of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum on Sunday urged a speedy resolution to the stalled Doha round of world trade talks.
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Asia-Pacific leaders will face challenges posed by a wave of bilateral free trade agreements when they meet for their summit in Chile Saturday.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on   Thursday pushed Pacific Rim economic partners to help save   stalled world trade liberalization talks.
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Australian ministers will urge Pacific rim leaders to do more to free up global trade and fight terrorism when they attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Chile this week.
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The theme of the 12th Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) leaders&#39; meeting - &quot;One Community, Our Future&quot; - is a reflection of the members&#39; strong will to promote regional economic dynamism and a sense of unity.
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SOUTHEAST Asian nations were set to sign a free trade agreement with China yesterday, creating an economic region with 1.7 billion consumers and a regional gross domestic product of $US2 trillion ($2.53 trillion).
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The Chilean government said Tuesday that the presidency of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) has helped Chile to deepen relations withthe Asia-Pacific region.
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The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is rallying for free trade agreements during its huge&#160;Consumer Electronics Show&#160;this week, saying barrier-free trade with other countries is crucial to the growth of U.S. jobs.Support for free trade isn&#39;t as strong in Washington, D.C., as it has been in past years, with several presidential candidates expressing concerns about free trade agreements, Gary Shapiro, the group&#39;s chief executive, said at a CES press conference on Monday.Free trade is &quot;something we&#39;ve taken for granted as an industry,&quot; Shapiro said. &quot;For the first time in my career, I am concerned about the future of free trade ... primarily because in Congress, on television, and with some of our presidential candidates, free trade is not a given.&quot;Shapiro, who has given his personal support to Republican Mitt Romney&#39;s presidential campaign, declined to single out presidential candidates who he saw as antitrade, but leading Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama have all expressed concerns about free trade agreements, often because of environmental concerns. Mike Huckabee, winner of the Iowa presidential caucuses on the Republican side, said in an October debate that the U.S. doesn&#39;t have fair trade with other countries because &quot;an American company is having to pay an extraordinarily high tax on everything they produce, but the countries who are exporting to us don&#39;t have the same border adjustability that we do.&quot;But Shapiro and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said Monday that free trade agreements are critically important to the consumer electronics and IT industries.&quot;This is real money for real people in the United States,&quot; Schwab said during the CEA press conference from Las Vegas. &quot;If there were ever a sector of the economy, if there were ever an industry, where you see the very, very clear converging of the benefits of free trade, of free markets and of the protection of intellectual property, this is it.&quot;Shapiro and Schwab called on Congress to approve free trade agreements that are pending with Columbia, Panama and South Korea. Including a trade agreement with Peru approved by Congress in December, those four countries represent about 124 million consumers, Schwab said.One reporter asked why U.S. residents should support free trade when they see friends or relatives losing jobs to workers in other countries, imported toys containing chemicals that harm children, or pet food that kills dogs and cats.Free trade can cause problems for a small number of workers, but many more U.S. workers have jobs because of free trade, Shapiro said. Free markets have &quot;temporary dislocations,&quot; but in the long term, countries cannot protect individual jobs in a global economy, he said. &quot;A great country doesn&#39;t put up walls,&quot; Shapiro added.Schwab said her office is working hard to crack down on imports of dangerous products. &quot;Our responsibility as a government is, first and foremost, the health and safety of our citizens,&quot; she said.
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Pacific Rim finance ministers called on  Friday for some emerging Asian economies to show greater  currency flexibility to address global imbalances and for the  group to work toward reviving world trade talks.
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VIENTIANE, Laos: China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are expected to make substantial progress in advancing the free trade area (FTA) at their summit to be held here today.
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VIENTIANE, Laos -- A day after reaching a deal with China in a bid to create the world&#39;s largest free trade zone, the leaders of 10 Southeast Asian nations have approved free trade talks with Japan.