Independent Review of Japan's Economic Reforms
An independent report has highlighted Japan's role in promoting economic reform and contribution to capacity building in the APEC region.
The "Study Report on Japan's Individual Action Plan (IAP)" to achieve its APEC goals was prepared by Mr Robert Scollay, Director of the APEC Study Center at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and Ms Chia Siow Yue, Senior Research Fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
The report looked at range of areas that are part of Japan's efforts to reach the APEC Bogor Goals, which set the target of free and open trade for industrialized economies by 2010 and 2020 for developing economies.
Economic reform was given particular attention with the report stating: "Economic reform is a central preoccupation of the Japanese government as it strives to create the conditions for sustainable economic growth.
"The reform agenda touches virtually every aspect of economic policy. Important changes have been made to the economic policy process, designed to promote greater coherence in economic policy-making and to facilitate more effective decision-making and implementation of policy decisions."
Covering a number of trade related sectors, the IAP report noted key areas of economic reform taking place in Japan's economy: "In recent years Japan has placed special emphasis on supporting APEC's work in the areas of intellectual property, competition policy, structural reform, standards and conformance, and WTO capacity-building. "
An APEC Member Economy since 1989, the report made mention of Japan's long history of involvement with APEC activities: "As a founding member that played a leading role in the establishment of APEC, Japan attaches high importance to APEC, and has continued to provide important support to APEC's work.
"Japan has been an active contributor to the work of APEC fora and subfora, several of which it has chaired over the years. Japan's willingness to act as the major provider of funding for APEC projects also reflects the importance that it attaches to APEC. \
All APEC Member Economies implement IAPs to guide them in their efforts to achieve APEC's Bogor Goals. The IAP review process program provides each Member Economy with the opportunity to have their progress towards APEC's goals assessed by Independent Experts.
Four APEC Member Economies are having their IAPs' reviewed at the current round of APEC meetings in Canberra. This process involves a presentation by the Independent Experts to a meeting of Member Economies followed by an opportunity for these economies to question the economy under review on the details of their IAP.