The World Trade Organization Remains The Most Prominent Platform Of The Global Multilateral Trading System

The APEC Ministerial Conference issued a joint statement emphasizing that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is still the "most prominent" platform of the global multilateral trading system.

This statement is remarkable because in recent years, the new progress of global regional economic integration has increasingly revealed the struggle between various forces for dominance of the new rules of global trade.

During the APEC Ministerial Conference and Summit, the 12 countries participating in the negotiations of the Trans Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP), including the United States and Japan, held a ministerial meeting and summit in Bali. The foreign media reported earlier that under the leadership of the United States, the TPP Summit held on the 8th may issue a declaration declaring that "the TPP negotiations have reached an agreement in principle".

However, US President Obama suddenly announced his absence from the APEC Summit on the 4th, casting a shadow over the "results" of the TPP Summit. The presidency of this meeting has changed from the United States to New Zealand.

TPP negotiation covers 21 fields, including tariff, trade facilitation, government procurement, intellectual property protection, service trade, e-commerce, and environment. It is the current and under negotiation free trade agreement with the highest threshold. TPP12 is also a member of APEC, but Indonesia, China, South Korea, Russia and other important economies are not involved.

The newly appointed WTO Director General Azevido also came to Bali to strive for APEC's support for WTO. The ninth WTO Ministerial Conference will be held in Bali at the beginning of December, in order to save the Doha Round and restart the global multilateral trade negotiations.

On the 5th, Azevido said in Bali that APEC members play an important role in the WTO, and the WTO's promotion of the multilateral trade system negotiations needs the continued support of APEC.

The statement issued at the APEC Ministerial Meeting did not disappoint Azevedo. The statement said that APEC hopes to promote the ninth WTO Ministerial Conference to make progress on the three core issues of trade facilitation, agriculture and development. The statement also urged all parties to the WTO negotiations to show political will, demonstrate flexibility, bridge differences and promote the meeting to achieve tangible results; Based on the breakthrough progress made by APEC in the tax reduction list of environmental products in 2012, further promote the practical progress made by WTO in the negotiation of environmental products and promote global green growth.

Tang Guoqiang, Chairman of the China Pacific Economic Cooperation National Committee at the meeting, believed that Indonesia, as the dual host of the ninth APEC and WTO Ministerial Conferences, actively combined the WTO Ministerial Conference agenda with the APEC agenda in promoting regional economic integration, which played a role in guiding regional economic cooperation through the multilateral trade process At the same time, regional economic cooperation is used to promote the synergy of multilateral processes.

Shortly before the opening of this APEC series of meetings, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), which ASEAN participated in with 16 countries including China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, has just concluded a new round of negotiations in Brisbane, Australia.

The 16 RCEP countries announced the launch of negotiations at the East Asia Summit in November last year. The key areas of negotiations include tariff reduction, rules of origin and other trade in goods, foreign capital control and other trade in services, investment protection and other investment areas. They strive to reach agreement before 2015, which is also the deadline for the ASEAN Economic Community proposed by ASEAN. After the completion of RCEP, it will form the world's largest free trade zone covering half of the world's population and accounting for one third of the global economy.

ASEAN is the main driving force of RCEP. Fukucheng Kimura, a professor at Keio University in Japan, said that RCEP covers almost all the production networks in East Asia, especially China and India. If ASEAN reasonably promotes RCEP, it will greatly promote the liberalization of goods, services and investment in the region.

It can be asserted that the progress and trend of these large-scale free trade negotiations will directly affect the shape of the Asia Pacific Free Trade Area (FTAAP) and even the new generation of global multilateral trading system. TPP negotiation participants are also APEC members; Most of the RCEP negotiating countries are also within APEC. In order to integrate these free trade negotiations without conflict and promote each other without dismantling the platform, APEC needs to play an important role in coordination and cohesion.

Professor Qiyi Mata of Xinglin University in Japan pointed out that APEC is still an important "incubator" for the realization of the Asia Pacific Free Trade Area. Against the backdrop of the stagnation of the Doha Round, various global bilateral and regional free trade negotiations are in full swing. APEC's continuous efforts in promoting trade liberalization and facilitation constitute the "pillar" of the Asia Pacific Free Trade Area.