APEC is facing the urgent need for reforming, perfecting itself and affirming its position: many commitments were made at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum trade ministers meeting.

Representatives attended the official opening ceremoney of MRT on June 2nd

 According to Vice-Prime Minister Vu Khoan, the task of the Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT) is to map out an action plan for implementing the Busan Roadmap toward Bogor goals that is to say “towards a dynamic community and a sustainable development” like the 2006’s APEC topic. The Vice-Prime Minister also Suggests that MRT find measures to minimize and remove restrictions on foreign investment, protect the intellectual property right, intensify economic-technical cooperation, cope with new challenges threatening the development and cooperation among the economies. He hopes that MRT will be able to convey a message of the necessity to remove difficulties, and successfully conclude the Doha round of trade negotiations on the basis of right balance as well as the special and particular treatments for developing countries.

    On the same afternoon, with the participation of WTO director-general, ASEAN secretary-general, senior officials and specialists from governments, specialists from enterprises of Asia-Pacific Economies, Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen chaired the press conference together with Ministers of APEC member economies to announce the results after two days’ meeting of MRT. On behalf of MRT, Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen stated that 7 important matters mentioned by SOM II at the conference were discussed by MRT. The Ministers re-affirmed the commitments of the member economies to build a multilateral trading system and to successfully conclude the Doha round of trade negotiations by the end of 2006. the Ministers continued to discuss the initiatives that proposed reforms about market access with success. These initiatives included the taxation methods for special and sensitive goods and these methods must be examined carefully to guarantee a sustainable development of trade relations but there must be still particular measures applied to sensitive fields of member economies. In the Agricultural field, the Ministers committed to cut or restrict the agricultural subsidization in each country. In the field of export competition, the Ministers agreed to eliminate all subsidization form by 2013. According to MRT, urgent measures were necessary to speed up the process towards a Non-Agricultural Market Agreement (NAMA) by the end of 2006. Minister   Truong Dinh Tuyen concluded that the Ministers at APEC reached a high agreement on building Ha Noi Program to implement Bogor goals about free trade and investment by the early of 2010 for developed countries and by 2020 for developing members. This is the method to create opportunities for APEC member economies to attain sustainable and prosperous development. The genaral contents of MRT will continue to be perfected by the end of July so that negotiations will end in November of this year when the summit APEC take place in Ha Noi.

                                                      Source: Dong Nai Newspaper.