This would demonstrate its own approach to liberalisation and encourage other APEC economies to follow suit. The decision at the Kuala Lumpur Summit to refer the EVSL proposals to the WTO may have been an effective political strategy to demonstrate that APEC leaders still supported liberalisation, but it is not an effective strategy to secure liberalisation. The wider the commitment, the greater the economic benefit to be won. In the former case, programs for sectoral liberalisation have been developed for agriculture, telecommunications services and financial services. There are fewer liberalisation programs for industries.
Examples are clothing and textiles and information technology.
It is harder to strike political agreements over industrial programs. The more specific they become, the weaker is the opportunity to use the political tool which the WTO negotiations create for Governments, namely an obligation to participate in a global endeavour which obliges participating governments to liberalise across the board. The APEC EVSL proposals were generally not proposals for sectoral liberalisation, but rather proposals for liberalisation by product. APEC economies should not further stake their collective weight behind the goal of achieving the modest targets for liberalisation which the EVSL proposals represent. This would waste the potential influence which APEC can bring to bear in the negotiations.