Criticised by business leaders and alarmed by the possible failure of next month’s world trade talks in Hong Kong, Asia-Pacific governments are acknowledging for the first time the dangers of the tangled “spaghetti bowl” of bilateral trade deals they have spawned in the past few years.

“We’re hearing from our business community that with all these different FTAs [free trade agreements] in the region, it’s getting hard for them to do business,” said a senior trade negotiator attending this week’s annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (Apec).