Towards an Investment Agenda for APEC

The Asia‐Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum has only recently included investment liberalization on its agenda. A review of actions since the Bogor declaration of 1994 reveals that critical components of an investment liberalizing strategy are already being assembled within APEC. For example, an investment experts group has been meeting regularly and it has undertaken work on impediments to investment and on implementing the non‐binding investment liberalizing procedures endorsed by members at Bogor in 1994. Investment is also now a required component of each member's annual individual action plan. It would be useful to formalize this process and then move towards adoption of the rules‐based investment provisions of NAFTA, especially the national treatment principle. Then the process developing within APEC to liberalize investment as well as trade by 2020 would help to speed up the economic integration of APEC.