Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is an organization created to strengthen economic relations among its members. The organization achieves this primarily through reducing legal barriers to trade and investment between members. APEC encourages policies that allow goods, services, and people to move easily between member economies.
APEC members are concerned with a broad range of economic issues, and officials from member economies frequently consult on these issues. APEC members have developed cooperative approaches to regional energy and environmental issues.
At its founding in 1989, APEC had 12 members—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and the United States. In 1991, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan joined the group. Hong Kong became a special administrative region of China in 1997 but kept its separate membership in APEC. Mexico and Papua New Guinea were added in 1993; Chile, in 1994; and Peru, Russia, and Vietnam, in 1998.
Since 1993, APEC has hosted annual summit meetings of the heads of state of its members (and an official representative of Taiwan). The location of these summits rotates among APEC member economies. The host government organizes the sessions with assistance from the APEC Secretariat based in Singapore.
At the 2014 APEC summit in Beijing, China, the 21-nation organization endorsed a plan calling for establishment of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). A trans-Pacific free trade agreement would boost the weak global economic recovery and lower tariffs, making trade among APEC nations easier and cheaper. In 2016, APEC leaders meeting in Lima, Peru, reaffirmed their commitment to work toward a new regional free trade agreement that would include all APEC members.
