Push for trade ties on day two of APEC summit

As the main day of talks got underway at a resort north of Beijing on Tuesday, President Xi Jinping urged countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group to speed up efforts to strengthen trade links.

"Clarify the goal, the direction, the road map...break open the closed doors within the Asia Pacific" on trade, Xi told his audience, which included US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

"At an early date, let prospects become reality and make the two sides of the Pacific highly open and integrated."

The APEC summit is the first such major leaders' gathering in China since Xi took office, and Beijing is using the opportunity to push for more influence in US-dominated global trade, and, more specifically, to promote its own free trade initiative for the region.

"We should... push vigorously for the progress of the FTAAP, setting out clearly its targets, direction and roadmap and turn the desire into reality at an early date," Xi said, referring to the Beijing-backed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific.

Tuesday's meeting concluded with APEC members issuing a joint statement saying they would commit to the FTAAP in a step-by-step manner based on consensus.

"We agree that APEC should make more important and meaningful contributions as an incubator to translate the FTAAP from a vision to reality," APEC leaders said in a declaration.

The US was also hoping to make progress with its long-delayed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to loosen trade restrictions in the region. Some see the pact - which involves 12 Pacific Rim countries including Japan, Canada, Australia and Mexico, but excludes China - as an attempt to check Beijing's growing influence in Asia.

Flurry of agreements

Meanwhile, the White House said Tuesday that China and the US had "reached an understanding" on an agreement to reduce tariffs on information technology goods.

The news follows Obama's announcement a day earlier that the world's two largest economies had also struck a reciprocal deal to grant visas valid for up to 10 years, a move that aims to open up new opportunities for investment and business projects.

Obama was to hold talks with Xi later on Tuesday.

Beijing on Monday announced a free trade agreement with South Korea to remove investment restrictions between the countries. Also on APEC's first day, regulators gave the go ahead for a plan to open a trading link between Hong Kong and Shanghai's stock exchanges.

Strained ties

Tuesday saw several meetings between leaders of countries with strained ties.

US President Obama met his Russian counterpart Putin three times on the summit's sidelines, according to the White House. Relations between Moscow and Washington have been strained over the past few months, mainly over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.

"Their conversations covered Iran, Syria, and Ukraine," National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan told reporters, adding that in total they met for 15 to 20 minutes.

Putin also met with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to discuss the MH17 plane crash in eastern Ukraine, with both leaders favouring a "genuine" probe into the tragedy, the Kremlin told news agency AFP.

Late Monday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the first time in eight months, according to a report from the South Korean Yonhap news agency on Tuesday. The pair agreed to spur talks to mend diplomatic ties which had been strained over issues including Japan's kidnapping of thousands of Korean women to work as sex slaves during World War Two.

Earlier in the day Abe met with Chinese President Xi for their first bilateral talks as leaders, following two years of simmering tensions over a territorial dispute that has raised dears of a military confrontation. The relationship between the two countries has been severely tested in recent years by their dispute over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

nm/se (dpa, Reuters, AP, AFP)