APEC meet focuses on banking abuse, fiscal reform

HANOI, Sep 5 (Reuters) Pacific Rim countries, including the United States and China, are this week discussing ways to combat money laundering and to prevent a repeat of the 1997 Asian fiscal crisis, officials said on Tuesday.

Financial officials of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum said that the meeting in Vietnam on Thursday and Friday of finance ministers and central bank officials would also press for World Trade Organisation talks to resume by the end of the year.

The so-called Doha round aimed at reducing trade barriers collapsed in July after disagreements about agricultural subsidies.

''This region is still traumatized by the 1997 financial crisis and there was some discussion about that, what measures to take,'' said Klaus Rohland, the World Bank representative in Vietnam, after one of the preliminary conferences on Tuesday.

Last week, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific warned the region's governments to protect themselves against sudden drops in the market.

It said the region's economies had improved since 1997, but ''as Asian economies are becoming more integrated into the global economy, they also face a higher risk from the constantly shifting global environment.'' APEC delegates were drafting a statement that would include deepening financial reforms, tackling money-laundering, misuse of financial systems by suspected terrorists and trade liberalisation, officials said.

NORTH KOREA ACCOUNTS Vietnam was hosting the annual meeting after being put on notice by the United States in July to check bank accounts opened in Vietnam by its fellow-communist ally North Korea for possible weapons dealing and money-laundering.

At a signing ceremony on Tuesday for a new poverty reduction program with the World Bank and other international donors, State Bank of Vietnam Governor Le Duc Thuy declined to answer questions about the accounts, quickly leaving the room.

U.S. diplomats said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would raise financial security issues at APEC, which also includes China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

Vietnam's first deputy minister of foreign affairs Le Cong Phung told delegates in a speech on Tuesday: ''Towards the goal of improving a secure and favourable business environment, a number of initiatives have been put forward in the areas of transparency and anti-corruption, secure trade and emergency preparedness.'' The conference is one of a series of APEC meetings this year leading up to the November summit in Hanoi that would be the biggest international event hosted by the Vietnamese capital.

REUTERS CS DS1623