BUSAN, South Korea, Nov. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- The Pacific Rim ministers agreed on Wednesday to set a roadmap to ensure that APEC's ultimate free trade and investment goals are reached by their target years.

    The ministers wrapped up their two-day meeting Wednesday in South Korea's southeastern port city of Busan prior to an Economic Leaders' Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum slated for Nov. 18-19.

    The Mid-term Stocktake of Progress Toward the Bogor Goals' report, endorsed by the APEC ministers on Wednesday, has found that barriers to trade and investment have fallen significantly inthe APEC region since the creation of the APEC process 16 years ago.

    The report was prepared from input provided by all of APEC's 21member economies that was then analyzed by independent trade and economic experts. The report lists achievements, notes challenges that lay ahead and then outlines the "Busan Roadmap to the Bogor Goals."

    APEC economic leaders set the Bogor Goals in 1994 with the aim of achieving free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region by 2010 for industrialized economies and 2020 for developing economies.

    Kim Hyun Chong, Korea's minister for trade and co-chair of the APEC Ministerial Meeting, said, as the year 2005 marks the midpoint between the creation of APEC in 1989 and its ultimate goals in 2020, member economies have seen the need to take stock and plan for the future.

    "The region has achieved a great deal during the past one and ahalf decades of APEC and now we have the roadmap to see our regional goals achieved," Kim said after the report was endorsed by APEC ministers.

    "The most notable achievement is that average applied tariffs in APEC member economies declined from 16.9 percent in 1989 to 5.5 percent in 2004. In fact almost half of all APEC member economies'tariff lines are at less than 5 percent while tariffs on many goods are now set at zero," he said.

    "The same period also saw intra-APEC goods and services trade more than triple and account for an ever-growing share of APEC economies' GDP, increasing from 13.8 percent in 1989 to 18.5 percent of GDP in 2003. Employment also grew by 18 percent in the APEC region between 1990 and 2002," he added.

    "There has been substantial growth in services trade, barriers to investment have been reduced and APEC has led the world in recognizing the value of free trade agreements to achieving regional trade goals," he said.

    Kim said the report outlines policy measures to be implemented in APEC member economies aimed at achieving APEC's Bogor Goals in a changing business environment.

    APEC Members have agreed to a number of initiatives to deepen commitment to the multilateral trading system and the WTO while also developing high quality free trade agreements, Kim said.

    "Member economies are committed to the launch of the Busan Business Agenda that has been developed to respond to concerns of the private sector such as business facilitation, transparency andbehind-the-border regulations," he said.

    "The roadmap also highlights the importance of economic and technical cooperation in order to develop and utilize skills and other resources from APEC economies. The report notes that these capacity building activities should be tailored to accommodate the specific needs of each member economy," he added.

    The "Mid-term Stocktake of Progress Toward the Bogor Goals" report was commissioned by APEC Economic Leaders in 2001 and assesses how far APEC has moved toward the Bogor Goals and what further actions are needed to reach the Goals.

    Since its inception in 1989 in response to the growing interdependence among Asia-Pacific economies, APEC has become a formidable regional forum acting as the primary regional vehicle for promoting open trade and practical economic and technical cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

    APEC accounts for more than one-third of the world's population(2.6 billion people), about 60 percent of world GDP and nearly half of world trade. It represents the most economically dynamic region in the world having generated nearly 70 percent of global economic growth in its first 10 years.

    APEC currently has 21 members: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile,China, China's Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. The chairmanship rotates among its members, with South Korea holding the chair this year.   Enditem