Apec leaders should push forward a development agenda at their Hanoi meeting this week and avoid entering into free-trade deals with the United States or their co-members that do not take into account the development needs of poorer countries, international agency Oxfam said yesterday.

The 21 economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum will adopt an action plan to achieve free and open trade and investment by 2010 and also discuss forging a regional free-trade zone, government sources said.

They will also talk about how to reactivate the stalled multilateral trade negotiations under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation.

"Apec should think carefully about creating a regional free-trade zone," warned Matthew Coghlan, regional trade policy officer for Oxfam.

"Apec is made up of both developed and developing countries. A free-trade agreement based on the US model, with deep and rapid liberalisation, and WTO-plus provisions and commitments, will pose problems for the latter as they seek to develop.

"Apec countries should proceed with caution before signing free-trade agreements with the US. The negotiations threaten developing countries with harsh conditions that will have a negative impact on development, particularly on poor people in rural areas," he said.

"US FTAs undermine the potential for poor countries to use trade to lift their populations out of poverty. Oxfam wants to see leaders be accountable, taking their citizens' best interest at heart, and negotiating in a transparent way."

Free-trade deals with WTO-plus conditions can block access to affordable medicine by including stringent intellectual-property rules. They also tend to favour foreign investors over the environment and the public interest.

For example, Thailand, which had been negotiating a free-trade agreement with the US and might restart talks after a democratically elected government is in place, would potentially lose its ability to produce patented essential and affordable HIV anti-retroviral drugs.

That could cost the country an additional US$3.2 billion (Bt117 billion) in medicine costs by 2025 and jeopardise the country's lauded HIV/Aids treatment programme.

Medicine prices in Peru will increase by almost 10 per cent in the first year and 100 per cent after 10 years if that country's free-trade deal with the US is implemented.

Trade deals the US is negotiating also fail to take into account the fact that it subsidises farm production with billions of dollars in taxpayer support, meaning that small farmers in Thailand and Peru might face massive dumping of subsidised farm products on their market.

"Bilateral trade agreements like the ones currently negotiated by the US in East Asia, favour big business and rich countries, and exacerbate existing inequalities between countries rather than reduce them," Coghlan said.

"Apec has prided itself as the premier forum to achieve shared economic development and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. Let's see if its members will keep development needs in mind when they discuss trade."