Of course it's imperfect and it can be improved. All of that can be said about the WTO, too. Some suggest that APEC and regionalism are in contradiction to the WTO and multilateralism. One trade expert once said that regional arrangements were like street gangs, not nice, but if you live in the neighbourhood you had better join up. I don't agree.
Open regionalism can give impetus to the best option, multilateralism.
It gives smaller countries the opportunity to learn the political, economic and business skills necessary to engage further. However, it does sometimes reflect the lack of satisfaction with the progress of the multilateral system. History has shown us that open societies do better. Our region testifies to this general principle. Thirty years ago 70 per cent of Indonesians lived in what the World Bank called extreme poverty.