The Shanghai meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) will serve as an opportunity for its member economies to revive confidence in the prospect of the region's economic growth, an APEC senior official from Mexico said.
A call from APEC economic leaders for the launch of a new round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks at the forthcoming ministerial meeting in Doha in November is expected to boost the region's investment and business after last month's terrorist attacks in the United States hit the world economy, said Gerardo Traslosheros.
"At the moment, it's important that the political guidance of leadership is exercised by our ministers and leaders in order to be able to launch a new round," Traslosheros was quoted as saying by Tuesday's APEC Newsletter published by the China Secretariat for APEC 2001. "A new round would send a very strong message, a very positive signal to the world economy."
Although experts have said the world economy, which was "given a push to a deeper slowdown in economic activity" by the terrorist attacks, is expected to start to recuperate by the second half of next year, concrete measures need to be taken to guarantee prompt restoration of confidence and an early economic recovery, the senior official said.
"And this (new round of WTO trade talks) is the sort of thing we need to do to restore world confidence in markets," he added.
Traslosheros called upon APEC economies to take concerted steps in areas of structural reform, the launch of a new round of multilateral trade talks at the WTO, as well as fiscal and financial policies in order to restore growth as soon as possible.
"What is more important is that this is showing us that the health of each individual APEC economy depends on the health of the world economy," he said, adding that the slowdown in the United States was also going to affect the Mexican economy.
Insisting that APEC should take the lead in major economic issues in the region, the Mexican official called the two wheels of the APEC framework - trade and investment liberalization, and economic and technological cooperation - to be mutually reinforced.
"You need liberalization in order to increase competition," he said. "At the same time, you need a strengthening of capacities in order to reap the benefits of economic globalization."
(People's Daily 10/16/2001)
