So there are still strong reasons to believe that APEC will have a major impact on regional and global trade and it will be a vehicle for significant and highly beneficial trade liberalisation.
At the very least the prospect of further trade liberalisation in APEC, which contains among its members the world's fastest growing economies and which accounts for half the world's output and nearly half global exports, will be a powerful incentive for a further global round of multilateral trade negotiations.17 That too would obviously be trade enhancing at the regional and global levels.
APEC remains an exciting opportunity - a process where some key decisions still need to be taken, but a process that can bring great benefit not just to Australia but to all APEC members and to the rest of the world, particularly if APEC liberalisation proceeds on an MFN basis. Benefits from APEC, however, will derive not just from trade liberalisation, but the extensive programs of trade facilitation and cooperation on economic and human resource development on which APEC has embarked.