VLADIVOSTOK, September 9 (Itar-Tass) — Leaders of the Asia-Pacific region’s countries have adopted a list of environmental goods, for which duties by 2015 will be lowered by five percent. The list is published in the final declaration of the APEC summit – the 2012 Leaders’ Declaration, which reads as follows:
“APEC plays an important role in pursuing green growth in the region. While each economy has its own environmental and trade policies, it is vitally important to pursue common approaches to environmental challenges, and take coordinated actions to address climate change, such as promoting trade and investment in goods and services needed to protect our environment and developing and disseminating relevant technologies.
“Trade and investment liberalization in environmental goods will help APEC businesses and citizens access important environmental technologies at lower cost, which in turn will facilitate their use and benefit the environment. In addition, it will contribute significantly to APEC’s core mission to promote free and open trade and investment, as embodied in the Bogor Goals.
“In that light, we are pleased to endorse the below APEC List of Environmental Goods that directly and positively contribute to green growth and sustainable development objectives on which we will reduce applied tariff rates to 5 per cent or less by the end of 2015 taking into account economies’ economic circumstances and without prejudice to their positions in the World Trade Organization (WTO), as we committed in 2011.
“We commit to continue capacity-building activities to assist economies in implementing tariff reductions on the agreed list of environmental goods.
“We believe that reducing our tariffs on environmental goods demonstrates our commitment to pursuing green growth objectives, addressing climate change and securing sustainable economic development, and are committed to continuing APEC’s leadership role in this regard.”
The list contains 56 items.