APEC membership
Although APEC is a significant body, it is important to note that it has no binding agreements among all of its member countries. Any decisions or commitments made by countries under the banner of their APEC membership is done on a purely voluntary basis.
Despite this, the importance of APEC and the benefits of membership to a country like Australia can be shown by looking at Australia’s trade figures. Fellow APEC countries purchase about three-quarters of Australia’s exports, and since the 1990s Australia’s annual APEC exports have more than doubled. APEC economies have generated 70 per cent of the increase in the world’s economic growth during that same time period.