Asia-Pacific leaders support China-backed free trade 'roadmap'

A summit of Asia-Pacific leaders on Tuesday (11/11/2014) endorsed a Beijing-backed concept for a vast free trade area in the region, the meeting's host Chinese President Xi Jinping said.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit "approved the roadmap for APEC to promote and realise the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific", Xi said at the close of the gathering near the Chinese capital.

Xi added that the support "symbolises the official launch of the process towards the FTAAP."

He called it a "historic" step reflecting the "confidence and commitment of APEC members to promote the integration of the regional economy".

China has sought to demonstrate its rapidly rising economic and diplomatic clout at the summit, and its advocacy of the idea comes with the United States focused on concluding difficult negotiations for its favoured Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) grouping.

The TPP aims for a loosening of trade restrictions and embraces 11 other Pacific Rim countries including Japan, Canada, Australia and Mexico, while notably excluding China and Russia.

But the TPP has run into snags as proposed members, notably Japan, have resisted opening their markets too widely.

The competing priorities have thrown the US-China trade rivalry into sharp relief during the Beijing meeting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, an increasingly close ally of Xi's, warned leaders at the summit against "a potential danger of the division of the common region into separate alliances competing among each other".

But US officials stress the two trade concepts are not contradictory.

FTAAP is considered to be a future goal that will build on multilateral trade partnerships such as the TPP, they say.

But the FTAAP idea is likely to remain a long-term one, as its main proponent China is itself accused of protecting its own domestic markets, hampering the prospects of trade liberalisation.

In a draft APEC communique seen earlier by AFP, regional leaders stressed the future importance of the plan, but the most concrete outcome was a call to launch a study on how to achieve it. - AFP