FTAAP good for Intl trade, investment: PwC

The Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) does not contradict existing bilateral FTAs in the region and can help facilitate global trade and investment, said Tom Seymour, tax leader of PwC Asia Pacific, on Wednesday.

The FTAAP was proposed in 2006 but enormous challenges lie ahead for its establishment.

Seymour told Xinhua that the biggest difficulty is that the FTAAP involves the negotiations of a large number of countries and complex political factors.

The numerous existing FTAs could lay a foundation for the much bigger FTAAP and the models could be copied, said Seymour from Australia.

China has said it will seek to accelerate the establishment of the FTAAP at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Economic Leaders' Meeting in November in Beijing.

Earlier this month, APEC trade ministers agreed in the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao to take concrete actions to strengthen regional economic integration and advance the FTAAP from 2014.