Pacific Rim ministers agreed to disagree Monday over when to start a new round of global trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization, though they did call for an early launch of the talks.
Foreign and trade ministers from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum said their bosses will try to narrow the gap on whether to specify 2001 as a target date for starting the round when they get together Wednesday and Thursday.
In their joint statement released after a two-day annual gathering in the Brunei capital, the ministers said they "reaffirmed their strong commitment to the launch of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations at the earliest opportunity."
The new trade round was supposed to have been launched early this year, but was delayed due to sharp differences among WTO members on the scope of the agenda, especially in the areas of labor protection, antidumping and agriculture.