Competition Policy in East Asia draws together a collection of papers on competition policy that were presented at the Twenty-Eighth Conference of the Pacific Area Forum on Trade and Development (PAFTAD), held in Manila on 16-18 September 2002. It seeks to clarify the issues and provide a framework for understanding competition policy, looking in depth at a number of regulated sectors for additional perspectives

Until two or three decades ago, competition and consumer protection policies were the preserve of the major developed economies like the United States, the United Kingdom and some European countries. Now competition issues are at the top of the international agenda as globalization spreads and as the operations of the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and other organizations have brought about a realization that regulatory reform - and in many economies the creation for the first time of regulatory instruments for competition and consumer protection - is an imperative.