16^th APEC TPT-WG
Hong Kong, China

PROGRESS REPORT OF THE MARITIME INITIATIVE MEETING

1.    The Maritime Initiative group held a meeting on 9^th November to advance the scheduled work of its group with participation from 11 economies: Australia; Canada; China; Hong Kong, China; Japan; Malaysia; New Zealand; Philippines; Chinese Taipei; Thailand and the United States of America.

A Transparency Exercise Questionnaire ( TEQ )

2.    Progress of submission of TEQ responses and web site arrangement for the revised assorted responses of TEQ were reported by Japan. The number of TEQ responses amounts to sixteen economies.

3.    As regards the voluntary self-analysis work which was agreed at the last MI meeting, allotment of the work was sought during the meeting. Thailand and Japan offered their willingness to analyze the General Maritime Policy and the Market Access respectively. The Chair also contacted several other economies volunteer to undertake the remaining areas of analysis work. The economies contacted were requested to reply to Japan in three weeks to arrange for the analysis work to be completed.

4.    Australia and the United States made presentation of their analysis on the Competition Law and the Market Access respectively, but because we felt the need of more time to consider the papers before discussing them in depth, discussion was postponed to the next MI meeting in Singapore.

B HNS Convention

5.    From Chinese information MI found no problems about inviting IMO representatives for HNS Convention issue, Canada will make effects to facilitate the IMO’s representative participation in the next MI meeting in Singapore, unless the conflict of meeting schedules between APEC and IMO prevents their attendance.

C Facilitation of International Shipping Project

6.    Australia reported the approval of the TILF account project of the Facilitation of International Shipping Project, and looked for economies of case studies and contact points. Because the members of MI felt that some economies might be interested in providing consultants, MI agreed that all the information of the preparation and progress will be provided through e-mail by Australia. In order to facilitate the preparation and implementation of the project, MI agreed that participants of the MI meeting would act temporarily as liaison persons for the project.

D Presentation of private sector

7.    Mr. Arthur Bowring, Director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association kindly made a presentation on the Hong Kong Shipping Industry. His presentation was extended to many issues, including the port history, the Hong Kong Shipowners Association’s profile, situation after the handover and their promotion activities to keep the shipping center status.

E WTO2000

8.    MI discussed the Australian paper "The TPT-WG and the WTO 2000 Round" and exchanged preliminary views on it. MI found that it included interesting proposals to consider. Concern was expressed about APEC doing the work of the WTO. Members of MI considered this issue could be treated in a constructive way through the cooperative discussion and information exchange among the TPT-WG members, not in a confrontational manner. But we also felt difficulties in discussing the WTO issues in MI meeting, because of scarcity of information on the Geneva process and further discussion of the subject by HODs.

This page was last updated on 1 Feb, 2008