The 16th APEC economic leaders’ meeting declared recently in Peruvian capital Lima that it would advocate the principle of multilateral free trade, oppose trade protectionism on the basis of APEC spirit, and promised not to create any new investment and trade barriers.
The announcement will play a positive role in preventing the global economic crisis from further worsening.
The financial turmoil in the US continues to upgrade and the “game of capital” among Japan, the US and European countries intensifies. With trade protectionism raising its ugly head, the world’s economy is heading to the verge of depression.
Transnational monopoly by the industrialized nations grows while the conflict between monopoly and anti-monopoly intensifies; posing a great challenge for WTO-advocated management of free trade system.
As the financial crisis continues to spread, the developed countries make their economic policies more inward and integrated while the coordination system for international policies shows signs of disorder. Although principles made in the G-20 Summit gave consideration to the interests of all parties, the specific plans have yet to be decided.
Japan, the US and European countries continue to pursue the policy of egoism, rather than enlarge fiscal expenditure in a true sense. They have only made some changes in financial and tax policies so as to prevent their own fiscal expenditure from flowing into others’ pockets. For instance, the UK, who is worried about its fiscal expenditure, advocates tax relief policies instead of using a proactive measure of fiscal expansion. The Japanese government put forward a comprehensive economic policy of 26.9 trillion yen, but the actual fiscal expenditure was merely five trillion. Most of the 700 billion dollar bailout package in the US is spent on solving domestic bad debt. Moreover, the EU’s policy shows a bigger tendency of protecting group interests.
If the industrialized nations take a similar stand, other will countries follow suit, it will be hard for the world to regain market confidence or for the world’s economy to remain open. The single-minded pursuit of the recovery of the stock market and real estate sector can only cover up the problems rather than solve them. If the developed countries do not come up with an effective measure, the economic crisis will be caught in the third stage in which economic recession will cause massive bankruptcy of the world's banks.
APEC, the world’s most dynamic regional economy, is the key for world trade and investment to adopt a mode of “managed openness” and “freedom”, and more importantly, it is also a major factor as to whether the world economy can maintain concerted development.
Leaders at the APEC meeting vowed to stick to the principle of regional free trade and be in cohesion with the APEC spirit of opposing any forms of trade protectionism to avoid falling into the same old trap of the “Great Depression” in the 1930s, and to maintain the coordination and stability of the world economy and politics.
APEC covers 21 countries and regions in the Asia Pacific region, with an economic volume accounting for 60 percent of the world’s GDP. The member states are world economic powers, emerging economies as well as energy powers. In the face of the crisis, APEC calls for pushing forward the Doha round of talks and the implementation of multilateral trade and free trade, which is of epoch-making significance in maintaining a steady economic development.
By People's Daily Online
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