At the APEC summit in November 2014, the participating countries discussed the possibility of creating an Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area (APFTA) by 2020 and approved the draft roadmap proposed by the Chinese side. The article uses hierarchical cluster analysis to assess the integration potential of the new association in four areas: liberalization of trade in goods and services, free movement of investment flows, financial integration and free movement of labor. The aim of the study is to determine the most likely scenario for the development of integration processes in the region, identify possible positions of the parties, as well as factors that contribute to and hinder the implementation of the concept of the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Zone.
Keywords: regional economic integration, trade liberalization, APEC, Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area (APFTA), hierarchical cluster analysis.
The article was received by the editorial office on 04.03.2015.
In November 2014, during the APEC summit, representatives of 21 participating countries1 once again expressed their intention to create a full-fledged integration association, and also approved the roadmap for the creation of the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area (APFTA) proposed by the Chinese side.
PREREQUISITES FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATION
Since the signing of the Bogor Declaration in 1994, APEC members have made significant progress in implementing multilateral regional initiatives aimed at ensuring "the free movement of goods, services and capital between APEC countries by removing administrative and other obstacles to the movement of trade and investment flows" [1]. In 1995, the Osaka Action Plan was developed to achieve the goals of the Bogor Declaration [2], and in 1996-the Manila Plan [3], which defined the directions of interaction between the participating countries in 15 areas, including tariff and non-tariff regulation of trade, investment flows, customs procedures, and intellectual property rights competition policy , etc.
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