Toward a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum launched a process that could ultimately produce the largest single act of trade liberalization in history. They agreed to " seriously consider " negotiating a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) and instructed their officials to " undertake further studies on ways and means to promote " the initiative so that they could address it at their next summit in Australia in September 2007, where the agreed to continue assessing the idea as a long-term proposition. The APEC members account for more than half the world economy and about half of world trade. Hence any agreement that approached free trade among the group would be even more far-reaching, in trade terms, than the European Union or the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It would be much more extensive than any of the global liberalizing compacts previously negotiated in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) or envisaged in the current Doha Round in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Doha remains highly desirable of course, and the APEC leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to its success, but the FTAAP would be by far the best available " Plan B " to restart widespread trade-liberalizing momentum if the multilateral process fails in Geneva. The FTAAP idea has been actively promoted by APEC's Business Advisory Council (ABAC) since 2004 as the only means by which APEC could achieve its signature Bogor goals, adopted in 1993 and reaffirmed every year since (including at Sydney), of achieving