Obama: "good progress" toward export goals for Asia

YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Saturday he has made "good progress" on his Asia tour of increasing U.S. exports to Asia and renewed his pledge that world leaders must work toward a balanced economic recovery.

"One of the important lessons the economic crisis taught us is the limits of depending primarily on American consumers and Asian exports to drive economic growth," Obama said in a speech to a business leaders' meeting being held alongside a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping in Yokohama.

"Going forward, no nation should assume that their path to prosperity is simply paved with exports to America," he said.

During a 10-day Asia tour that has also taken him to India, Indonesia and South Korea, he has stressed the need to boost exports to Asia's rapidly growing markets to create jobs at home, where unemployment has been around 9.5 percent for the past year.

The anemic U.S. economic recovery and stubborn jobless rate were major reasons for the drubbing Obama's Democrats took in this month's midterm election.

Obama said he remained committed to completing a free trade agreement with South Korea. Failure to reach agreement in time for his trip to Seoul earlier in the week was an embarassing setback for Obama, who had pledged to complete the deal announced in 2007.

"Completion of this deal could lead to billions of dollars in increased exports and thousands of American jobs for American workers. So I am committed to seeing this through," Obama said.

Obama said he was also committed to doing what was necessary to cut the U.S. budget deficit in half by 2013, as he has promised.

However, he said he would not cut back on investments he termed essential to the future -- education, clean energy, research and infrastructure.

Yokohama is the last stop on a 10-day trip to Asia in which Obama has also visited India, Indonesia and South Korea. In Seoul he attended a G20 leaders' summit and in Yokohama he will attend the APEC meeting before returning to Washington on Sunday.