Trade And Investment Liberalisation In Apec

"This book assembles papers that were produced under a three year collaborative research program on 'China and APEC' undertaken by the AustraliaJapan Research Centre, in the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Management at The Australian National University and the APEC Policy Research Center, in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ... The work on this project and the papers in the volume provide a base for developing ideas that could be helpful to the policy agenda for APEC 2001."--Preface.

Trade liberalization has swept over developing countries over the past few decades and its results have been argued about for the last few years. This important new book presents useful insights into the experience of APEC countries that have gone through numerous liberalizing reforms in recent times. Students, researchers and readers generally interested in APEC economies will find this book a good addition to their bookshelves.

This title was first published in 2001. This work is a response to criticisms that investment liberalization in the APEC region is not moving quickly enough. It commences with a historical overview of APEC's process for investment liberalization and a description of current foreign direct investment policies for each of the APEC economies. It then argues that there are significant constraints to further liberalization arising from economic development concerns in the developing countries and political considerations in both developed and developing countries in the region. It also suggests that a truly liberalized investment environment would involve the removal of investment incentives. Again, there are political and institutional reasons that make this difficult. With several suggestions for further research that should better inform policy makers, this is an informative insight into the complex issues involved in the liberalization process in the APEC region.