The US urged Asia to do more to stimulate growth to offset the eurozone crisis, ahead of a summit in which Washington is seeking to shape the rules for the emerging Pacific region.
Police sealed off Honolulu’s usually laid-back Waikiki Beach as Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) became the latest leader to arrive for the weekend summit that will be led by US President Barack Obama, a Hawaii native.
US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, chairing talks on Thursday of finance ministers from the APEC bloc, said that the meeting was dominated by how to make growth more balanced and sustainable, given the crisis in Europe.
PHOTO: AFP
“Asian economies will need to do more to stimulate domestic demand growth — both so they are less vulnerable to slowdowns, such as the situation in Europe, and so they can continue to contribute to global growth,” he said.
The 21 members of APEC account for about 40 percent of the world’s population, more than 50 percent of its GDP and 44 percent of global trade.
“While APEC economies are the most vulnerable to a global slowdown, they can also play the greatest role in contributing to the global recovery and establishing the foundations of strong, sustainable and balanced future growth,” Geithner said.
Europe warned on Thursday that the debt crisis was dragging the region toward a new recession, as Greece chose a new prime minister to try to pull it back from the brink of financial disaster and Italy lurched into crisis.
In Honolulu, where Obama hopes this weekend to unveil the broad outlines of a landmark trade pact, there were signs of tensions between the US and the Asia--Pacific’s emerging power, China.
Obama is expected to announce a tentative free-trade deal tomorrow called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with eight other nations — Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is seriously considering bringing the world’s third-largest economy into the talks, a step that would move the once-obscure pact closer to becoming an Asia-wide trade deal.
Obama, who was to arrive late yesterday, hopes that such trade deals will ramp up US exports and create badly needed jobs, his top priority as he seeks re-election next year.
Business organizations from across the Asia-Pacific region expressed strong support for the TPP as an “economic growth catalyst” and pressed for negotiations to be concluded in the first half of next year.
The group, which included the Asia-Pacific Chamber of Commerce and a number of national federations and business -coalitions, urged TPP leaders “to set an ambitious timetable for completion of these talks.”
Critics said that the TPP pact includes communist Vietnam and that the agreement’s details were vague. The pact has sparked opposition among farmers in Japan and the US, who fear growing competition.
China is not part of the TPP and on Monday questioned US goals for the summit, including the reduction of tariffs on “green” goods within the APEC bloc.
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