SYDNEY, Sept 5: Japan and other Asia-Pacific countries on Wednesday expressed reservations over a bold US proposal to create a vast free-trade zone involving 21 Pacific basin economies, an official said.

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum ministers tackled the issue for the first time since Washington made the proposal at the Hanoi APEC summit last year, Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Mitsuo Sakaba said.

Australian Trade Minister Warren Truss, who chaired the meeting,

“expressed the hope that after the discussion at the ministerial level that a report outlining studies on the issue should be brought to the attention of the heads of government before their weekend summit,” he told reporters.\

But while the ministers complimented the authors on their “balanced” report, the dream of a single free-trade area within APEC is “basically a kind of long-term objective for APEC”, Sakaba said.

He said Japanese ministers, who attended the meeting remarked that “further studies should be made” over some aspects, including in the area of regional competitiveness, capacity-building and structural reform “before engaging in any process of negotiation in the future.”

He said the Japanese ministers also “stressed the importance that APEC should continue to work on a sector-by-sector basis as we have been doing before engaging in full-fledged region-wide negotiations.” —AFP