This paper reviews and evaluates Individual Action Plans (IAPs) of the non-OECD member economies of APEC. APEC adopted a unique modality of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, called IAPs. Individual member economies announce their liberalization plans unilaterally and voluntarily.

Then, they jointly review the IAPs and their implementation to encourage the member economies to achieve measures to be carried out over the immediate, medium and longer term in fifteen specific areas.

This paper focuses on competition policy and deregulation. Competition policy is included in IAP to enhance the competitive environment in the Asia Pacific region through the review of respective competition policies, implementation of technical assistance, and establishment of appropriate cooperation arrangements. Deregulation in IAPs is to promote transparency of regulatory regimes in APEC member economies and eliminate the distortion arising from domestic regulations. In particular, the focus is on the trade and investment effects of domestic regulations.

There is a growing consensus that competition oriented policy framework would be instrumental in achieving the Bogor goal of trade and investment liberalization. But at the same time, there is no consensus on the specific goals or scope of competition policy among member economies because they are at various stages of industrialization, and have different institutional, legal and cultural heritages. This is evident in the IAPs submitted by member economies. To partly resolve the problem of lack of a common principle in the area of competition policy among APEC member economies, the APEC Principles To Enhance Competition and Regulatory Reform was adopted in September 1999 at the Auckland APEC Leaders Meeting.

Similarly, IAPs for deregulation is limited in advocating comprehensive regulatory reform in the economies studied under the current APEC charter. While many countries carry out comprehensive program of regulatory reform, including deregulation, to improve efficiency of business and government, and raise consumer welfare, APEC's deregulation deals mostly with market opening deregulatory measures. Thus, APEC overlooks some of the most important aspects of regulatory reform such as reforms of public administration, or the possibility of systematic adoption of tools to examine usefulness and efficiency of regulations (e.g. regulatory impact analysis). Part of the problem is that there is no clear definition of "deregulation" for IAPs. The deregulation component acts as a "catch-all" listing of various deregulation measures which are not listed in many other, better defined areas of IAPs (eg. customs procedures, technical standards and conformity, sectoral regulations) which have not been covered in this paper. Consequently, deregulation process in these economies can seem incoherent and haphazard, if only looked at through the IAP for deregulation.

Executive Summary

I. Introduction

II. IAPs for Competition Policy
1. Brunei Darussalam
2. Chile
3. China
4. Chinese Taipei
5. Chinese Hong Kong
6. Indonesia
7. Malaysia
8. Papua New Guinea
9. Peru
10. Philippines
11. Russia
12. Singapore
13. Thailand
14. Vietnam

III. IAPs for Deregulation
1. Brunei Darussalam
2. Chile
3. China
4. Chinese Taipei
5. Hong Kong, China
6. Indonesia
7. Malaysia
8. Papua New Guinea
9. Peru
10. Philippines
11. Russia
12. Singapore
13. Thailand
14. Vietnam

IV. Conclusion

Appendix : History of APEC

References

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