ABAC: Assessment of the Proposal for an FTAAP
Preliminary Assessment of the Proposal for a
Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP)
An Issues Paper for the
APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC)
10 November 2004, 41 pp.
Table of Contents
1. FTAAP in the Asia-Pacific and Global Trade Landscapes
1.1. FTAAP and Existing Liberalisation Processes
1.1.1. APEC
1.1.2. Unilateral Libealisation
1.1.3. WTO: The Doha Development Agenda (DDA)
1.1.4. Preferential (Bilateral and Plurilateral) Agreements
1.1.4.1. Recent Plurilateral Developments in the APEC Region
1.1.4.2. The FTAA and a Possible East Asian Trade Bloc
1.1.4.3. EU Developments
1.1.5. The Potential Role of the FTAAP
2. APEC Economies and their Trade in Regional and Global Perspectives
2.1. North America and Northeast Asia as the “Economic Core” of the
APEC Region
2.2. Regional Trade Flows: The Pre-eminence of North America and
Northeast Asia
2.3. The Importance of Trans-Pacific Trade
3. Issues in the Design of an FTAAP
3.1. Trade in Goods
3.1.1. Product Coverage
3.1.2. Transitional Periods
3.1.3. External Barriers and Trade Diversion
3.1.4. Agriculture
3.1.5. Rules of Origin
3.1.6. Trade Remedies
3.2. Services Trade
3.3. Investment
3.4. Trade Facilitation
3.5. Intellectual Property
3.6 Setting the Agenda: Insights from the FTAA Process
4. Membership issues
4.1. Membership Issues for APEC Economies
4.2. The Position of Non-APEC Asia-Pacific Economies
4.3. Non-APEC non-Asia-Pacific Economies
5. Assessment of the FTAAP Concept
5.1. Economic Effects
5.2. Feasibility
5.3. Implementation
5.4. Design
5.5. Implications for the WTO and Multilateral Trading System
5.6. Implications for APEC
6. Alternatives to the FTAAP: An Asia-Pacific Single Market?
7. Conclusions
8. References
