* APEC leaders push to revive global trade talks
* Economic crisis dominated two-day meeting
* Canada says it could soon be in "technical recession"
By Chisa Fujioka and Oleg Shchedrov
LIMA, Nov 23 (Reuters) - The United States, China, Japan
and 18 other economies in Asia and the Americas promised fast
and decisive action on Sunday to prevent a severe global
economic downturn.
With recession gripping parts of the world and financial
markets in chaos, leaders at the 21-member Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation forum, or APEC, said the slowdown is "one
of the most serious economic challenges we have ever faced."
They said free trade and higher government spending were
key to resolving the crisis and supported a big push to revive
long-stalled global trade talks by seeking agreements in the
contentious sectors of farming and manufactured goods.
The leaders promised to "take all necessary economic and
financial measures to resolve this crisis."
Their declaration at the end of a two-day summit in Peru
echoed measures called for by the Group of 20 major economies
at a meeting in Washington a week earlier, and widened support
for drastic action to stimulate lending and spending.
APEC members account for more than half of the world's
economic output and also include Canada, Indonesia, Mexico,
Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong. Nine
of them belong to the G20.
They pledged to work together to ease the turmoil, agreed
not to adopt new trade barriers for a year and called for
better regulation of the financial industry.
They also supported overhauls of the International Monetary
Fund and World Bank at a time when more countries need
emergency bailouts to avert economic disaster.
"The global political and economic architecture is
undergoing the deepest and most complicated changes since the
Cold War," Chinese President Hu Jintao told Russia's Dmitry
Medvedev at the summit.
Medvedev said the non-binding declaration might still allow
countries to help domestic producers.
"On the one hand we took an obligation not to resort to
protectionism, but of course we will draft measures to help our
producers survive, help them with credits and some reasonable
measures," he said.
Japan reiterated an offer of $100 billion in funding for
the IMF, but its peers did not follow the example.
TRADE DEADLOCK
APEC, which groups some of the most open economies in the
world, warned that countries should not be tempted to use
protectionist measures even if job losses mount.
"We are convinced that we can overcome this crisis in a
period of 18 months," a statement by the leaders said.
But Australia's Kevin Rudd said that timetable was the view
of Peru's Alan Garcia, not of all APEC members, and Canada's
Stephen Harper said it sounded too optimistic.
Seven years of global trade negotiations have been hampered
by disputes between the United States, China, India and other
major players, and it is not clear what concessions they are
prepared to make now.
U.S. President George W. Bush, on his last scheduled
foreign trip before leaving office in January, held bilateral
meetings with the leaders of China, Japan and Russia.
He tried to use the meeting to revive global trade talks
before handing off to President-elect Barack Obama, who has
expressed more caution about free trade than Bush.
A senior U.S. official told reporters in Geneva he saw a
"very high probability" that trade ministers would return to
Geneva next month to try to get a breakthrough in the so-called
Doha round of trade talks.
Major economies have slashed interest rates and spent
hundreds of billions of dollars to help struggling banks after
the meltdown in the U.S. housing market sparked a worldwide
credit crisis.
Now countries are looking at stimulus plans that include
boosting government spending and cutting taxes.
Obama said on Saturday he was crafting an aggressive
two-year stimulus plan to revive the troubled economy.
Canada could dip into a technical recession later this year
or early next year, and will use fiscal stimulus if needed,
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.
APEC meetings over the last eight years have often been
marked by anti-Bush protests and demonstrations against free
trade, but protests were muted in Peru, perhaps because Bush is
so close to leaving office.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert, Marco Aquino, and Doug
Palmer; Writing by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Terry Wade and Chris
Wilson)
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