Malcolm Turnbull has vouched for Indonesia and the Philippines to be included in a 12-nation Pacific trade pact in a bold pitch for an even bigger global deal.
The prime minister formally backed the campaign of the two nations eager to be part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in a meeting with 20 other regional leaders in Manila on Thursday.
At a roundtable of the final day of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Mr Turnbull urged for the creation of an even bigger trade pact than the one which encompasses 40 per cent of the global economy.
He wants the TPP to be used as the basis for a global trade agreement.
"We should with the TPP be prepared to take on board other economies - and the Philippines being clearly a strong candidate as indeed is Indonesia - and build a global trade arrangement from the bottom up," Mr Turnbull told the meeting.
The prime minister backed New Zealand counterpart John Key's remarks on the frustrations with the mothballed Doha round of talks of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) because some economies refused to "play ball".
"Trying to do it in one hit seems to be very hard - as John said, its been 20 years since the Uruguay round, so that's not very encouraging.
In a declaration at the end of the Manila meeting, APEC nations also vowed to press on with a goal to establish a free trade zone covering all their countries.
But they did not put a deadline on achieving such a deal, favouring the non-committal "eventually".
Such a trade pact is favoured by China, which is not part of the yet-to-be signed TPP agreement.
On climate change, the group vowed to achieve an "ambitious" and "balanced" agreement on emissions in Paris in December.
They reaffirmed a goal to double renewable energy in the regional energy mix by 2030 and urged those nations which have yet to achieve promised cuts to tariffs on renewable energy goods to do so.
