Finance & Business World

Asia-Pacific leaders will pledge on Sunday to keep stimulus policies in place to stop the world from sliding back into recession, wrapping up a summit that has been dogged by accusations of U.S. trade protectionism.

President Barack Obama arrived in Singapore late on Saturday, missing most of the day’s formal talks and speeches where several leaders suggested the world’s largest economy was hampering free trade through policies such as “Buy America” campaigns.

Speaking in Tokyo before he arrived, Obama called for a new strategy to rebalance global growth, referring to the excessive consumption in the United States and the over-reliance on exports from some countries that many blame for the economic crisis.

Leaders from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will vow to “maintain our stimulus policies until a durable economic recovery has taken hold,” according to a draft of their final statement, to be issued later on Sunday.

APEC is the last major gathering of global decision-makers before a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in three weeks meant to ramp up efforts to fight climate change.

Those negotiations have largely stalled, but a U.S. official said Obama had backed a two-step plan by the Danish prime minister to aim for an operational agreement and to leave legally binding details until later.

The APEC draft earlier dropped a reference to emissions reductions of 50 percent by 2050, and pledged instead to “substantially” cut carbon pollution by 2050.

The statement said job creation would be at the heart of economic policy, a hot topic as unemployment has risen across the industrialized world and put pressure on governments to act.

“Looking beyond supporting the recovery, we recognize the necessity to develop a new growth paradigm for the changed post-crisis landscape, and an expanded trade agenda for enhanced regional economic integration,” the draft APEC statement says.

DOHA RHETORIC

The leaders of APEC, a 21-member grouping accounting for more than half of all global output and 40 percent of world trade, will also resolve to exert more political will to jump-start the Doha Round of global trade talks, stalled for eight years.

Beyond the rhetoric of trying to conclude the Doha Round, APEC officials have sought to instead talk up a so-called Transpacific Partnership aimed at forging a regional trade deal.

Obama said Washington would work with the partnership countries, but stopped short of saying Washington would join the pact. The former U.S. administration said last year it would launch talks to join the partnership with Singapore, Chile, Brunei and New Zealand, countries that together comprise a minor component of trade within APEC.

It is the first free trade agreement that spans both side of the Pacific and supporters are touting it as a precursor to a possible APEC-wide pact in the future.

Washington has been criticized on several fronts for its trade policies, especially toward China, which will be the most closely watched of Obama’s four stops on his first Asia tour as president. He leaves for Shanghai later on Sunday. 

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