Chairman's Summary for the Third Special Session of the Senior Officials Meeting(SOM)
In a very friendly and constructive atmosphere, the Third Special Session of SOM at Sapporo conducted deliberations on the Action Plan. The deliberation was greatly assisted by the very welcome reports of the representatives of the relevant APEC organs. As a result of the intensive discussion with the active participation of all members, substantial progress was made both in the structure of the Action Agenda and the procedure of APEC actions to be taken by members in accordance with the structure, as well as in specific areas of actions.
The Co-Chairs , feeling confident that we are in good position to advance preparation for the APEC Ministerial and Leaders' Meeting at Osaka, will make necessary preparations for the next session of the Special SOM, in cooperation with the member economies, and the chairmen/shepherds of relevant APEC bodies.
In the areas of the structure and procedure of the Action Agenda:
- uacute; Broad agreement on the structure of the Action
Agenda surfaced. Further exploration of how to highlight
the significance of the three pillars, namely,
liberalization, facilitation and cooperation, may be
required.
- uacute; Broad recognition was observed of the roles,
within the Action Agenda structure, of General
Principles,Objectives and Guidelines to govern actions.
- uacute; APEC actions are based upon the favorable undercurrent of voluntary individual actions of member economies for liberalization on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the need for common rules to govern such actions to make them have the character of APEC group concerted actions. The aspect of collective actions to promote liberalization and facilitation also was widely valued.
In specific areas for liberalization and facilitationÅFthe Special SOM discussed liberalization and facilitation actions in the areas of tariffs, non-tariff measures, services, intellectual property rights and rules of origin.
The Special SOM also received reports from the Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI), including sub-committees and experts groups on investment, standards and conformance, customs procedures, competition policy, government procurement, deregulation, dispute mediation , Uruguay Round implementation, survey of regional trade impediments and mapping exercise (in the order of the reports).
Significant progress was reported by relevant fora. The in depth discussion that took place on all the issues resulted in deeper mutual understanding and significant progress in some areas. In order to further advance the status of specific areasof the Action Agenda by the Osaka Meeting, further works were required of the related fora as well as of the SOM .
The Co-Chairs thanked the relevant fora for their contribution to the Special SOM and requested them to continue their endeavors toward the next Special SOM meeting in September.
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