U.S. backs Russia's intention to liberalize trade in Asia Pacific - U.S. trade representative
KAZAN. June 4 (Interfax) - The United States welcomes the aspiration of Russia, as the APEC president, to liberalize trading rules in the Asian Pacific region.
"We have been very pleased that Russia has identified a number of issues it would like to see continued liberalization on trade," U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk said in an interview with Interfax.
"Our job, as trade ministers, is to make sure that by the time President Putin hosts the [APEC] leaders in Vladivostok in September that we have made progress on those issues that Russia has identified, as well as those that we carried over from our meeting in Honolulu," he said.
APEC has become over the past 20 years a laboratory for the development of new principles and disciplines in trade liberalization in the Asian Pacific region, he said.
"Much of what we have done in APEC has become the foundation for plural-lateral, other trilateral trade agreements," Kirk said.
The full text of the interview will appear at www.interfax.ru and www.interfax.com.
