ABSTRACT
The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation process (APEC) has adopted trade and investment liberalisation, trade and investment facilitation and economic cooperation. Most of the detailed initiatives for investment liberalisation in APEC emanate from the investment experts group. The major criticism of APEC's institutional mechanisms for liberalising both trade and investment revolve around the voluntary nature of the process. However, the pace at which liberalisation can continue depends on eliminating both economic development concerns and political constraints. Although the studies are numerous, their findings are inconclusive as one's find in detailed analysis of case studies for Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and China. Policymakers in developing countries are therefore unsure about the impact of rapid market liberalisation. National security concerns may constitute a further brake on liberalisation. While the APEC process has made some progress in removing barriers to entry, there have been few, if any, initiatives on other side of the liberalisation equation: removing investment incentives.
