Spotlight: Xi wraps up LatAm tour as China's regional, global role growing bigger(2)

ADVOCACY FOR FREE TRADE AREA OF THE ASIA-PACIFIC

At the APEC CEO summit in Lima, President Xi renewed his call for pushing forward the building of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), saying it is a strategic initiative critical for the long-term prosperity of the Asia-Pacific.

"We should firmly pursue the FTAAP as an institutional mechanism for ensuring an open economy in the Asia-Pacific," he told global business leaders, emphasizing openness is the lifeblood of the Asia-Pacific economy.

The FTAAP process was launched at the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Beijing with the endorsement of a roadmap. A "collective strategic study" was subsequently conducted, as agreed by the APEC members, and the result should be reported to the economic leaders by the end of 2016.

Once established, the FTAAP, the largest free trade area in the world,can unleash much greater economic vigor than other regional trade arrangements and add an estimated 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars of output to the global economy.

"We have an obligation to continue the core agenda. Perhaps the first issue is the adoption of the collective strategic study, which was required by the Beijing Roadmap," Raul Salazar, APEC affairs director at the Peruvian Foreign Ministry, told Xinhua in Lima.

Economic globalization, open economy, regional inter-connectivity, and reform and innovation were key words of Xi's speech, which was encouraging under the current international situation.

As protectionism and isolationism are on the rise in Europe and North America, China's leadership grows stronger, providing commercial openness, cooperation and multilateralism, the leading Chilean newspaper El Mercurio said in its editorial release on Tuesday.

With the future of the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) dims under U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the alternative Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) occupied the center stage at the APEC meeting in Peru.

The 16-member RCEP, composed of the 10 member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India, missed its negotiation deadline last year, but with the uncertainty of TPP, RCEP has regained attention at the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting.

Analysts believe that the RCEP will become the main path toward the final realization of a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific.

"We must energize trade and investment to drive growth, make free trade arrangements more open and inclusive and uphold the multilateral trading regime," said the Chinese president.

Xi's proposal was echoed by other APEC leaders, as they reaffirmed their commitment that the FTAAP should be built upon ongoing regional undertakings, and through possible pathways including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

"We reiterate our commitment to the eventual realization of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific as a major instrument to further deepen APEC's regional economic integration agenda," reads the declaration after the Economic Leaders' Meeting.

"That China's push for FTAAP has won positive response from APEC members shows China's special role in the region, which will also help increase the region's part in global recovery," said Wu, the Chinese scholar. Endi