When gardens are neglected, weeds sprout. The withering of the Doha world trade round has led, predictably, to a flourishing crop of alternatives. As well as accelerating the growth of preferential bilateral deals, which frequently generate more political puffery than economic substance, the collapse of the talks has revived interest in grand initiatives spanning entire regions.
One is Japan’s big idea of expanding existing plans for an east Asian economic community to include India, Australia and New Zealand. A yet more ambitious proposal, floated by Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, on this page last week, is for a free trade area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) embracing the 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (Apec).
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