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"We
are working on how we can add substance to the different pillars
of IPEF ... We hope there will be something to announce by the
time of the APEC summit," Lawrence Wong told Washington's Center
for Strategic and International Studies after talks with U.S.
officials this week.
"In areas like supply chains, green economy, digital economy;
these are things that we are pursuing, and we hope certainly
that there can be some substantial progress."
U.S. President Joe Biden launched IPEF as part of efforts to
step up economic engagement with Asia to compete with China
after his predecessor, Donald Trump, pulled out of a pan-Pacific
trade pact, but it lacks the market-access provisions Asian
states want.
Wong, who is also Singapore's finance minister, said that given
it may be difficult in some instances to get consensus among all
14 IPEF members, Singapore had said its bilateral cooperation
with the United States could be a "pathfinder" for others to
follow.
"We set high standards, it can be a pathfinder, it can be a
test-bed that we do together before it is expanded to the
broader region," he said.
Sources familiar with plans for IPEF discussions at APEC say
there is hope countries could agree to language around the third
and fourth pillars of the framework, which deal with clean
energy and decarbonization as well as anti-corruption.
The first pillar on trade could prove too far a bridge for a
November consensus, they say, and talks on the second pillar,
involving supply chains, were largely agreed in May.
The summit meetings of the 21-member APEC forum will take place
in the week of Nov. 11-17 in San Francisco.
Wong said Singapore would like to see more far-reaching
agreements with the United States, including market access and
trade liberalization, but recognized "there's no mood to talk
about these issues" at the moment in the U.S. given its domestic
political environment.
"But I think we should maintain high ambition and hopefully down
the road, in years to come, the conditions may change."
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Michael
Martina; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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