APEC Economies - Breaking Down the Barriers
Case studies in regulatory and administrative reforms
APEC Economies: Breaking Down the Barriers has been prepared by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with input from other APEC economies, for the October 2001 APEC Economic Ministerial and Leaders' Meeting in Shanghai, China.
The report was prepared with the assistance of the Centre for International Economics, Canberra.
Download the report
- APEC Economies: Breaking Down the Barriers (340KB PDF)
Highlights
- APEC economies are implementing wide-ranging regulatory and administrative reforms, resulting in improved market access, increased efficiency and reduced impediments to competition and innovation.
- The benefits of regulatory and administrative reforms are significant. Trade facilitation measures implemented to date will add 0.25 per cent or US$46 billion (in 1997 prices) to APEC's real gross domestic product by 2010.
- The implementation of more efficient and effective regulatory and administrative procedures benefits all participants - governments, businesses and consumers.
- The reforms have generated large reductions in compliance and administrative costs, and in some cases have underpinned far-reaching domestic reforms that have significantly improved efficiency across a range of sectors.
- Despite their diversity, the reforms share some important common elements, including consultation, a service culture and competition.
- APEC cooperation in trade facilitation is helping to lay out blueprints for administrative improvement and regulatory reform, and to provide a framework for networking and exchanges between practitioners.
- APEC ECOTECH - economic and technical cooperation - is promoting capacity-building to support the implementation of economies' action plans across all aspects of the reforms highlighted in this report.