Following a similar report produced last year, as part of the APEC Information Sharing Mechanism on RTA/FTAs agreed in 2014, this report analyzes the evolution of the number of RTA/FTAs by APEC economies in the past two decades and examines the general structure of the RTA/FTAs that APEC economies put in force during 2015. Nine agreements were included in this report, namely: the Australia-China; Australia-Japan; Canada-Korea; Chile-Thailand; China-Korea; Korea-New Zealand; Korea-Viet Nam; Malaysia-Turkey and Mexico-Panama FTAs.
This report analyzes specific topics in these nine RTA/FTAs, and examines provisions in selected chapters to identify possible common patterns or recent trends. Where relevant, the report examines the WTO-plus commitments included in those agreements. The selected chapters are rules of origin, services, investment and intellectual property.