BEIJING
Asia-Pacific leaders have agreed a roadmap for a regional free trade area, state media quoted Chinese President Xi Jinping Tuesday.
The Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, known as the FTAAP, concord was hailed by Xi as a “historic step,” Xinhua news agency reported.
"It demonstrated the confidence and determination of the APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] in advancing regional economic integration and it was a decision that will be written into history books," he said.
The free trade zone is backed by China and apparently rivals the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which excludes China and Russia and is viewed as part of a U.S. response to growing Chinese influence in the region.
The 21 APEC states, who have been meeting in Beijing, will carry out a two-year study into establishing the FTAAP.
Xi has used the summit to underline economic integration in the region, including a $50 billion ‘Silk Road Fund.’
Rejecting the suggestion that the U.S.-backed trade partnership is designed to blunt China’s influence, U.S. President Barack Obama told Xinhua Monday: “I firmly believe that we can avoid repeating history where we have seen destructive rivalries between existing powers and emerging powers.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. and China agreed to drop tariffs on a range of technology products that the U.S. said would eliminate tariffs on $1 trillion worth of global sales and create 60,000 American jobs.
Obama unveiled the deal, which expands the Information Technology Agreement after more than a year’s negotiations, on Tuesday morning.
China had previously been blocking moves by the U.S., the European Union and Japan to update the deal, originally struck in 1997, and it could now be ratified in December by the World Trade Organization.
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