Syria elbows into APEC summit

No major breakthroughs are being expected from the Asia-Pacific summit underway in Vladivostok, but as the 21-nation forum brings America and Russia face to face, another issue has forced itself to the fore: Syria.

While it was announced import taxes are to be slashed on technologies that drive sustainable growth, Russia’s foreign minister fired a warning shot aimed at upcoming UN meetings:

“We don’t support sanctions in Syria because sanctions won’t produce anything.
We have no specific business interest in Syria.
The scale of our trade and economic cooperation, as well as military and technological cooperation, is much smaller with Syria compared to our western trade and economic interests including, first of all, our European partners,” said Lavrov.

APEC members also include China, Canada, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. They count for over half of global economic output, 44 percent of trade, and enjoy relatively strong growth, but remain divided on a host of free trade and territorial issues.
Trade barriers remain a significant brake on investment.

Russia and China jointly called for more progress on forging regional ties to protect members from the stuttering global economy.

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