ABSTRACT
In Asia, the governance of regional trade has been changing significantly. Whereas up to the turn of the century most countries in the region concentrated on participating in the multilateral trade regime, today there is a marked shift. Almost all countries in the Asia-Pacific have embarked on a new course for their trade policy. Bilateral trade agreements are mushrooming all over the world, but Asia, including the Asia-Pacific, is the region with the most prolific supporters of bilateralism (Lloyd 2002: 1282). Frustrated with the lacklustre development of APEC, and in view of the FTA networks of the European Union (EU) and the USA, Asian countries are following the bilateral trend (Hufbauer and Wong 2005: 3; Ziltener 2005: 279).
