How many asian countries are members of apec

At a landmark summit meeting in , APEC announced a lofty goal of establishing free trade and investment regimes in the Asia-Pacific region by for members with developed economies. The group hoped to achieve those same goals for its developing economy members by In , APEC adopted the Osaka Action Agenda, a program designed to facilitate business activities, liberalize trade and investment and promote economic and technical cooperation.

While some decisions are unanimous, they are not legally binding on the member governments. APEC maintains a policy support unit to provide research and analysis to support the organization's goals for the region, as well as special working groups to explore and promote various issues and components of economic development.

These groups engage in multiple micro causes that aim to advance policy and awareness. Examples of these sub-groups include:. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

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Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Member economies participate on the basis of open dialogue and respect for views of all participants. In APEC, all economies have an equal say and decision-making is reached by consensus. There are no binding commitments or treaty obligations. Commitments are undertaken on a voluntary basis and capacity building projects help members implement APEC initiatives.

APEC's structure is based on both a "bottom-up" and "top-down" approach. Four core committees and their respective working groups provide strategic policy recommendations to APEC Leaders and Ministers who annually set the vision for overarching goals and initiatives. The working groups are then tasked with implementing these initiatives through a variety of APEC-funded projects.

Members also take individual and collective actions to carry out APEC initiatives in their individual economies with the assistance of APEC capacity building projects. There are 12 founding members of APEC, who were original signatories when the organization was formed in When people think of Pacific countries, they often think of countries in South Asia.

All of the APEC countries have a border on the Pacific Ocean and stand to gain much through economic cooperation among other Pacific nations. Members of APEC are not defined by whether or not they are independent states but by whether or not they have independent economies.

As a result, APEC is defined by the economies of countries in it, and members are known as economies rather than nations, states, or countries. Economies that are members of APEC represented a diverse spectrum of economic systems.

China is communist, and Russia was once the flagship of the communist Soviet Union but is now somewhat capitalist. Most APEC economies run on a free-market system that, as opposed to communism, is not dominated by state control. Many have some form of socialism in their economic systems, within the range of free-market capitalism.