As political and business leaders representing more than half of the world's economic output start to gather in Singapore for the weeklong annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a question looms: Does APEC matter?Designed to promote Asia-Pacific trade liberalization but without power to make binding agreements such as the World Trade Organization, the question of relevancy has dogged APEC almost since its inception. In 1993, Gareth Evans, former foreign minister of Australia and chairman of the first APEC meeting, famously quipped APEC was "four adjectives looking for a noun."
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