APEC Officials Back Blueprint for Free Trade : Asia: Fuzzily worded pact is expected to be approved by member nations Sunday, but full implementation is a decade or more away.

Pacific Rim officials meeting here Thursday reached unanimous agreement on a blueprint for establishing free trade throughout the region, but used diplomatically fuzzy language to paper over differences on agricultural issues.

The agreement, scheduled to be formally approved Sunday by a summit of leaders from the 18 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, identifies 15 areas in which steps are to be taken toward freer trade, more open economies and closer cooperation.

Implementation could begin as early as January, 1997, though the painstaking process is not expected to be completed for more than a decade.

“We have really taken another giant step forward in APEC,” U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said, describing the plan as “a good one.”

Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said there are still “one or two possible bits of language” that might be inserted but that “on all the major issues, the text is settled.”

“The major players are agreed and we’re on our way to the implementation of a very good program,” Evans said.

The 15 targeted areas of cooperation range from tariff and non-tariff barriers to intellectual property rights, customs procedures and deregulation. The pact endorses the principle of “comprehensiveness,” meaning that the goal of free trade applies to all trade sectors, including sensitive ones such as agriculture.

But it also allows individual countries “flexibility.” This intentionally ambiguous language immediately drew varying interpretations.

“It was absolutely crucial, obviously, to have no direct language excluding agriculture, or any indirect language which would lend itself to that interpretation. That result has been achieved,” Evans said.

But South Korea, which along with Japan, China and Taiwan had insisted on special treatment for agricultural trade, is equally happy.

“The key word is flexibility ,” said South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon. “It allows members to voluntarily decide on the speed, extent, timing and method of implementing liberalization.”

At an APEC summit last year in Indonesia, the region’s leaders agreed that industrialized economies would drop all trade barriers by 2010 and that other members would do so by 2020. However, nothing was decided about how to reach that goal or even what it really means.

The blueprint endorsed at the ministerial level Thursday calls for each APEC member to plan unilateral steps toward improvements in the 15 listed areas, then discuss those measures at next year’s regional summit in the Philippines.

While the steps to be taken are basically voluntary, another key principle in the “Action Agenda” is “comparability.” That means any country trying to benefit from lowered trade barriers without doing its part would face criticism from other members.

APEC, which was founded in 1989, includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.

Also defused Thursday was a U.S.-China dispute over equal treatment of Chinese exports to the United States.

Beijing has insisted that in keeping with principles of equal treatment for all APEC members, the United States must end its annual review of China’s trade status. Under U.S. law, China’s most-favored-nation status--which simply means equal treatment with all MFN trading partners--must be reviewed annually because it is a Communist country.

The issue was resolved by inserting language into the “Action Agenda” stating that members would “apply or endeavor to apply” non-discriminatory trade practices. Kantor described that language as “just perfect.”

Long Yongtu, a senior Chinese official, was less enthusiastic.

“ Endeavor . . . means that MFN is not resolved,” Long said. “We hope that the parties involved in the U.S. will take further efforts on this matter.”

Kantor is scheduled to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Yi, on Saturday to discuss China’s stalled bid to enter the newly created World Trade Organization.

The talks are part of an “effort to try to ensure that China accedes into the WTO on a commercially reasonable basis,” Kantor said.

* JAPAN INSULTED: Clinton cancels trip to APEC due to budget crisis. A19.