Why and how the APEC process is working

Although there has been no grand design, the process of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) has made steady progress, much more than the ministers present at its creation in 1989 could possibly have envisaged. It has made progress by proceeding pragmatically. the impetus came from the economies of the Western Pacific that are dependent on trade, and on the maintenance of an open trading system, and accordingly got fed up to the gills with being discriminated against in the markets of the major trading powers. APEC might thus be seen as an exercise in “collective action” to influence more powerful countries and strengthen the multilateral trading system.