SYDNEY, Sept 6: World Trade Organisation chief Pascal Lamy said on Thursday a proposed Asia-Pacific wide free trade zone would be hard to achieve because of the wide diversity of the region’s economies.

The concept of a sprawling free trade area stretching from China to Chile was worth studying, Lamy said, but warned that negotiators are likely to face the same problems that are weighing down current global trade talks.

“I think it’s a concept, which is worth deepening, studying, chewing (and) discussing with various constituencies,” he said, referring to a proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).

But “whether the odds that it will happen are there, I don’t think so,” he told a business forum on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Sydney.

Many of the executives at Thursday’s forum are members of an APEC business advisory council, which has voiced frustration at the WTO’s floundering Doha Round of trade talks and supports efforts to find an alternative route to trade liberalisation.

Lamy insisted the multilateral trading system remained the best framework for freeing up world trade.

“Knowing a bit about the diversity and the variety of APEC countries, I think if an APEC free-trade zone is possible, then a WTO Doha deal is very easy,” said Lamy.

Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu, who spoke in the same forum, voiced similar sentiments.

“If you are going to negotiate an FTAAP, you are going to face the same issues and sensitivities and complexities,” she said.

“What makes us think that we can solve it under an FTAAP if we can’t solve it under the WTO?

“In the short term, it is very difficult to see the prospects of an FTAAP, but it doesn’t mean that we should not do anything about cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.” APEC leaders are expected to call for a study on the long-term prospects of an Asia-Pacific free trade area during their weekend summit.

—AFP