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Regional trade agreements are undergoing many changes. Notably, the trajectory of China’s trade agreements has been affected by the unique US-China Phase One agreement, and these agreements extend beyond free trade agreements (FTAs). China’s trade agreements represent a different path forward from that mapped out by deep FTAs (e.g., the CPTPP) in respect of the future of trade law. This paper analyses two crucial but underexplored questions: What are the approaches behind deep FTAs and China’s trade agreements? How can we assess trade agreements (particularly China’s trade agreements)? The article critically reviews China’s trade agreements and deep FTAs. Based on in-depth comparative study, it argues that China’s trade agreements adopt an early harvest approach, which contrasts starkly with the regulatory plowing approach found in deep FTAs. It further proposes a tripartite theoretical framework with six indicators to assess trade agreements in terms of their impacts on domestic regulation. It theorizes about three crucial variables of trade agreements: (i) breadth (regulatory outreach) with two indicators (WTO-plus and WTO-beyond rules); (ii) depth (regulatory density) with two indicators (regulatory cooperation and coherence, and domestic law changes); and (iii) strength (rule use intensity) with two indicators (state-to-state dispute settlement (SSDS) rules, and SSDS coverage). This framework provides key insights into the significant heterogeneity and rationales behind trade agreements. It is critical to the in-depth analysis of evolving trade agreements and their implications, and supports the thorough assessment of the merits of different agreements in future research.

A frequently stated objective of regional and multilateral trade agreements is to stabilize trade and reduce volatility in trade flows. We examine whether trade agreements accomplish this goal. Using a structural gravity approach we identify two potential channels through which international trade institutions may influence the volatility of bilateral trade flows: by affecting the variance of trade barriers and by affecting the covariance of economic outcomes between the trading partners. We then use a panel of bilateral industry-level trade data to empirically examine the effects of regional trade agreements and GATT/WTO membership on export earnings volatility. We find some evidence that joining a multilateral trade agreement such as the GATT does make export earnings less volatile. However, regional trade agreements increase measured volatility in bilateral exports, and this rise in volatility increases as the agreement becomes deeper and more integrated.

The massive expansion of world trade has been one of the most important occurrences in postwar economic history. In comparison to the rest of the world, Indian trade increased slowly but steadily from 1950 to 1980. The Indian government began a series of reforms in mid-1991 to liberalize and globalize the Indian economy. Since1991, India's economy has pursued a liberalization program. International trade is a critical strategic tool for a country's economic success. As a result, India has shifted away from inward-looking economic policies in order to compete in the global economy (Ratna & Kallummal, 2013). The current article focuses on India's new strategic participation in international trade through free trade agreements (FTAs) and regional trade agreements (RTAs).

Using two novel administrative datasets containing monthly sales and input-sourcing information for plants and products with regional heterogeneity within India, we find that the inter- to intra-region trade ratio declines sharply after the COVID-19 induced lockdown in March 2020. The ratio settles at a 5 percent lower value in the last quarter of 2020 even though the movement restrictions were lifted by August 2020. The inter-region trade collapse is higher for plants more dependent on inter-region sales (inputs) before the shock as they switch to intra-region sales (inputs). The impact is persistent and intra-region sales (inputs) increases by 8 percent (6%) for a one-standard-deviation increase in inter-regional dependence. This switch leads to a recovery in aggregate output while inter-regional trade languishes. We identify products more likely to realign sales and find that the realignment channel contributes 7.6 percent to the sales growth in India in the last quarter of 2020.

This paper interrogates the current legal regime on data protection West Africa and the impact of data and data protection on regional trade as well as the challenges facing data protection in West Africa. It further examines the strides ECOWAS member states must cover with regards to data protection so as to create space for a robust digital economy and regional trade in West Africa.

As labor provisions in regional trade agreements proliferate, critics contend that they are used for protectionist purposes. Existing categories of labor clauses lead to inconsistent empirical results. We propose and apply a new typology for labor clauses to all WTO-notified regional trade agreements from the 1990s through February 2016 and generate Pseudo Poisson Maximum Likelihood and Two-Stage Heckman gravity model estimates of the relationship between labor provisions and bilateral trade. Although individually heterogeneous, the overall relationship between labor provisions and pair-wise trade is positive. Contrary to contention, our estimates suggest that labor provisions reduce trade costs and facilitate trade.

This paper examines the regulatory development of the regionalization provisions in Article 6 of the WTO SPS Agreement, focusing on implementation challenges to the provisions’ operation. Main findings of the study reveal that, since the time the principle was drafted in the Uruguay Round negotiations, one of the issues continuously discussed was finding an appropriate level of burden that requires exporting Members to provide evidence for a claim of clean areas. The Agreement’s legal criteria being not sufficiently concrete, recent rule-developments seem to be mainly in two directions: the onus is more shared between exporting and importing countries, and RTA provisions structurally incorporate more participation from the relevant international organizations. Also, applying a broad perspective that explores negotiations, rules and applications, the analysis attempts to shed light on recurring fundamental problems pertinent to importing countries’ recognition of clean areas under the world trading system.

Recently, international trade has become regional rather than global. This paper aims to test if deeper regional integration contributes to the organization of global value chains along the regional clusters including Asia, Europe, and America. We estimate the impacts of deep regional integrations on global value chains by region, investigating the implications of mega FTAs for global value chains by scenario. We use not only data on trade in value added but also global value chains participation indexes which reflect the global value chains better than domestic value added in goods and services exports. The estimation results reveal that a deep regional trade agreement has heterogeneous effects on global value chains depending on the regional clusters. In particular, Asia turns out to import more intermediate goods than Europe and America while RTA member countries tend to import more intermediate goods from Europe than Asia and America.

The world has witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) since the early 1990s, which has prompted a heated debate among trade economists and policymakers about the implications of RTAs for the multilateral trading system. Besides the standard economic gains from regional integration, RTAs can produce significant political gains for their member countries, chief among which is the reduction in interstate conflict between RTA members (peace-creation effect). Thus, depending on the RTA in question, economic integration and peace solidification can both occupy center stage on the agenda of the prospective RTA partners during the trade negotiations, affecting their duration. It is well known that the duration of negotiations across RTAs differs substantially, but this phenomenon has not received much attention in the literature. In this paper, we explore for the first time the legacy of past conflict on RTA negotiations. Using a unique dataset on the history of formation of a large number of RTAs (Tabakis and Zanardi, 2018) as well as data on conflict from the Correlates of War project and by employing survival analysis techniques, we found that country pairs with history of conflict conclude their trade negotiations relatively faster—1.5 to 2.2 times faster in comparison with country pairs with no history of conflict. The result has implications for firms’ investment decision and the role of politics in RTAs negotiation.

Portuguese Abstract: O presente trabalho apresenta uma analise da globalizacao como a base da internacionalizacao, e dos seus meios, servindo esta de ponto focal para a analise do dumping social em Mocambique em contrapartida do bloco regional SADC, buscando analisar os riscos e oportunidades advindas dela e a posterior seus factores de decisao pelos modos de entrada em novos mercados e os que geram risco e oportunidades mediante o dumping social. Visa de igual modo analisar o dumping social no contexto do comercio regional e identificar os desafios actuais da internacionalizacao com base nos modelos, motivacoes e factores de decisao que encaram as PME’s em Mocambique. English Abstract: This paper presents an analysis of globalization as the basis of internationalization, and its means, serving as a focal point for analysis of social dumping in Mozambique in return for the regional bloc SADC, seeking to analyze the risks and opportunities arising from it and beyond. Their decision-making factors by the modes of entry into new markets and those that generate risk and opportunity through social dumping. It also aims to analyze social dumping in the context of regional trade and to identify the current challenges of internationalization based on the models, motivations and decision factors facing SMEs in Mozambique.

This article argues that the global financial crisis has weakened institutional support for financial liberalization in regional trade agreements and increased transaction costs in the financial services sector. Due to the lack of cooperation among international economic organizations, regional trade agreements, such as the TPP and TTIP, are at odds with international financial policies such as Basel III. This article analyzes the design of regional trade agreements and finds shortcomings — a proliferation of micro-prudential carve-outs, an absence of a macro-prudential perspective, and a fragmentary FTA dispute settlement. I argue that these shortcomings erode not only trade liberalization, but also international regulatory cooperation in financial services. This article brings together issues in international trade and finance that have been examined separately and calls for cooperation among international economic organizations.

With the likely demise of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism as of December 11, 2019, the question arises as to whether regional trade agreement (RTA) dispute settlement mechanisms such as those in the recent US-Mexico-Canada Agreement can provide an acceptable alternative. The paper concludes that the answer is "no," largely because most such mechanisms can be blocked by respondents simply by their refusal to appoint panelists.

We find that observed cross-country price differences primarily reflect regional market segmentation occurring within countries. Using a model of price-setting subject to costly search, we show that identification of national versus regional segmentation requires augmenting price data with regional trade flow data. Calibrating the model to data from U.S. and Canadian regions, we estimate substantial regional trade frictions: U.S. producers are three times less likely to sell to retailers in the "away" region of the United States than in their own region, and only slightly less likely to sell to a region in Canada, controlling for market size differences. Canadian producers have an even stronger home bias: they are 7 times more likely to sell in their own region than in the "away" region in Canada, and 11 times more likely to sell in their own region than in a U.S. region. Models that do not explicitly account for regional home bias can misstate the severity of segmentation at the national border.

We estimate how developing countries’ access to more advanced countries’ markets, proxied by regional trade agreements (RTAs) with such countries, affects their agricultural input use (namely, the use of fertilizer and agricultural machinery). Using pooled OLS with country and year fixed effects and alternative instrumental variables, we find that having RTAs with high-income countries is associated with higher consumption of fertilizer relative to those countries that do not have such agreements—about 10 percent more. A similar result is obtained for the use of agricultural machinery per 100 square kilometres: in particular, relative to those countries that do not have RTAs with high-income countries, those countries that do have such RTAs use more than twice of agricultural machinery per 100 square kilometres.

Over the last few decades there has emerged quite a unique and interesting trade structure in East Asia, in which countries in the region trade intermediate goods heavily with themselves while trade more final goods with the rest of the world. This paper discusses the facts about this trade structure in detail and empirically investigates how it is related to the macroeconomic interdependence in East Asia using a VAR model and data of nine major countries in the region. Our main findings are as follows. First, a positive USA output shock raises exports, imports and GDP in most of the East Asian countries, and USA output shocks explain a larger fraction of output in an East Asian country where exports to East Asia are more concentrated in intermediate goods. Second, an export shock of an East Asian country that raises its exports also raises its imports, and the contribution of export shocks in the variance of imports is increasing in the share of intermediate goods in imports of the country. Third, compared to output shocks from Japan, those from China appear to be more influential to the East Asian economies.

This work uses input-output techniques to analyse the value added content of the interregional and international trade of Italian regions, which are characterized by marked differences in their level of development and production structure. Regions differ from one another in their degree of dependence on international and other regions’ demand: in those of the Centre and North, the contribution of foreign demand to regional production of value added is greater than in Southern Italy, where the role of national demand is much more important. Most regions show a significant participation in global value chains for given amounts of exports to other countries and regions which, however, are smaller overall in relation to total production in the South. The latter is also somewhat peripheral in the geography of international trade and depends to a greater extent on national suppliers; moreover, the supply ties between the different regions of the South are weak compared with the ties with some regions of the Centre and North.

Russian Abstract: Региональная экономическая интеграция проявила себя в мировой практике как успешная модель стратегического развития. Либерализация таможенных тарифов, а также унификация и снятие нетарифных ограничений в рамках интеграционных объединений осуществляются быстрее, чем в рамках всей мировой торговой системы. В настоящее время подписано 419 региональных торговых соглашений (РТС), из которых более половины составляют соглашения о зонах свободной торговли (ЗСТ). В условиях определенного снижения интенсивности взаимодействия России с западными партнерами особое значение для Евразийского экономического союза (ЕАЭС) приобретает наращивание активности в Азиатско-Тихоокеанском регионе (наиболее динамично растущем мировом регионе). Ключевым направлением международного сотрудничества для ЕАЭС является реализация форматов современных всеобъемлющих соглашений о зонах свободной торговли. Страны АСЕАН имеют богатый опыт заключения региональных торговых соглашений. В общей сложности ими заключено более 80 двусторонних и многосторонних РТС. Так, в настоящее время функционируют многосторонние РТС (так называемые АСЕАН 1) АСЕАН-Китай, АСЕАН-Индия, АСЕАН-Республика Корея и АСЕАН-Австралия-Новая Зеландия. English Abstract: Regional economic integration has proved itself in the world practice as a successful model of strategic development. Liberalization of customs tariffs, as well as unification and removal of non-tariff restrictions within the integration associations are carried out faster than in the whole world trading system. At present, 419 regional trade agreements (RTS) have been signed, of which more than half are agreements on free trade zones (FTAs). In the context of a certain decrease in the intensity of Russia's interaction with Western partners, the escalation of activity in the Asia-Pacific region (the most dynamically growing world region) acquires special significance for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEC). A key area of ​​international cooperation for the EEMA is the implementation of the formats of modern comprehensive agreements on free trade zones. The ASEAN countries have rich experience in concluding regional trade agreements. In total, they concluded more than 80 bilateral and multilateral RTAs. Thus, currently there are multilateral RTAs (the so-called ASEAN) ASEAN-China, ASEAN-India, ASEAN-the Republic of Korea and ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand.

The CPEC, designed to link Pakistan and China through rail and road network including the tunnel, will provide a new era of prosperity in the region. The CPEC will supplement the benefits of both of the nations and side by side provides a new way for regional development benefitting all neighbouring countries coming into the web. Most probably, it will ensure a new dimension to local trade that predicts transportation infrastructure, industrial production units, decreased transportation costs, reduction in inventory cost and improved delivery time. The CPEC will also strengthen the market potential for Pakistan’s exports to China in the field of agricultural products, textile, and minerals. It will further enhance the tourism flow to the Northern regions of the country. Moving ahead, the empirical findings of the study also suggest that various development strategies are emerging in the CPEC context for policymakers to optimize the logistics, transportation, trade decisions.

Russian Abstract: В данной работе, рассматриваются возможные сценарии активизации интеграционной повестки ЕАЭС с учетом изменений происходящих в региональной архитектуре Азиатско-Тихоокеанского региона. В частности, проводится анализ текущей активности ЕАЭС по заключению региональных торговых соглашений. В рамках подготовлены рекомендации по содержательному наполнению будущих соглашений. В работе представлено видений концепции «Большого Евразийского партнерства» и пути его реализации. English Abstract: In this paper, authors analyze possible scenarios of activation of the integration agenda of the EAEU, taking into account changes and challenges occurring in the regional architecture of the Asia-Pacific region. In particular, they analyze current activity of the EAEU regarding the formation of regional trade agreements. Authors also give recommendations on the substantive content of future trade agreements. The work contains visions of the concept of "The Great Eurasian partnership" and the ways of its implementation.

The Trump administration recently released the proposed text of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a major regional trade agreement that, if ratified, would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). While the government procurement chapter of the proposed USMCA was largely a copy-and-paste from the abandoned Transpacific Trade Agreement (TPP), the procurement chapter of the USMCA did contain a few major surprises -- including the omission of Canada. This article reviews the background to the USMCA, some of the most important elements of the agreement, and the lessons learned for future international cooperation in procurement policy and law.

In this article we investigate the impact of trade openness on labor force participation rate. We use tariff rate as the main indicator of trade openness and we employ the number of regional trade agreements and the average tariff rate in the neighbors' countries as instrumental variables to diminish the endogeneity problem of the tariff rate. We find that trade openness increases the participation rate which is economically and statistically significant. The results show that this correlation is robust under controlling for different variables and using various specifications. We find that 10 percentage point increase in tariff rate lowers the participation rate by 4-6 percentage point and this relationship is more severe in the long-run.

While both international trade law and regional trade agreements in the SADC region are typically focused on nation states, it is cities that produce the bulk of economic goods and services in the region and that, in effect, are the main actors in terms of trade agreements. Similarly, regional trade is facilitated by inter-city infrastructure, connectivity, transport routes and so forth. Indeed, both formal and informal trade in the region predominantly take place on an inter-city level, yet this is seldom perceived or structured by applicable legal regimes. Changes in the legal and/or regulatory landscape in one city may thus have regional trade implications across the region, without these visibly triggering international or regional trade laws or agreements. One example of this is the City of Johannesburg’s ill-fated crackdown on unlicensed informal trade through the so-called “Operation Clean Sweep” in late 2013. Apart from its devastating impact on the lives of Johannesburg-based traders and their families, Operation Clean Sweep’s economic effects were felt in cities across SADC and beyond, as a number of formal and informal cross-border trade links were negatively impacted, or even severed, by its implementation. This paper aims to better understand the role of cities and local government in regional trade, while at the same time exploring the international dimensions of informal trade.

Intra South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) trade isn’t of commendable value as compared to that of EU or ASEAN. The question arises, does the trend imply failure of SAARC in economic terms or the root failure lies outside the rational scope of trade? Therefore, an attempt is made in this paper to look at the economic possibilities of intra-regional trade in SAARC. The key sectors are identified using linkages of input-output analysis. The paper also identifies the possibilities of regional value chains using Revealed Comparative Advantage.

The world trading system witnessed a rapid rise in the formation of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), particularly in the post-WTO period. Despite a large number of studies conducted in this area by the trade economists, there are divergent views on the outcome of RTAs on world trade as well as there is no unanimity on the desirable mechanism of trade liberalization. The paper looks into various theoretical arguments and empirical explanations that support or opposes RTAs. A careful review of the studies identified the underlying conditions that are required for the successful functioning of the RTAs. Even though regionalism is discriminatory in nature, it enjoys as a preferred method of trade liberalisation among nations as it provides immediate results to the trade policy initiatives. The paper concludes that for the successful functioning of the RTAs, they should be carefully calibrated by identifying trade creating partners and accommodating the interests of the local stakeholders. Also, successful regional cooperation agreements should stimulate multilateral initiatives.

In this paper, we examine the interplay of regional economic integration and the use of bilateral antidumping (AD) measures. Our empirical analysis brings three central findings to light: (i) We find that regional trade agreements (RTAs) generally reduce the likelihood of AD activity among integration partners. (ii) In addition, an improvement in tariff treatment of trading partners —regardless of whether expressed in absolute or relative terms— generally leads to a lower likelihood of bilateral AD activity. (iii) Regarding the interaction of both events, however, an improvement in the relative tariff treatment among fellow integration partners leads to a higher likelihood of bilateral AD activity than an equal improvement in the relative tariff treatment among non-integration trading partners. The latter effect seems to be primarily driven by those RTAs with a participation of “South” countries.

The mega regional trade agreements – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – will impact on non-parties through a combination of trade and investment diversion and the spillover effects from the emerging regulatory framework for global commerce that these agreements will effectively put in place. This paper reviews the changes to the regulation of international commerce that will be brought about by the mega regional trade agreements. Based on this review, it develops options for policy responses by those economies that are not members of the mega regional agreements.

This paper examines how the laws of six countries in South-East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand) fit within the WTO TRIPS and regional trade agreement regime for pharmaceutical patents. It examines the laws under the headings of patentability, patent administration, generics to market (preparation for market and compulsory licensing) and trade in pharmaceuticals (parallel importation and compulsory licensing). Its interest lies with drug development and access to medicines. In addition to the reading of the legal texts, note is made of any empirical studies of the impact of the laws.

This paper assesses for the first time the effect of regional trade openness on agglomeration within regions, using regional data on the trade of Colombia. The results of the panel model show that the effect of trade is sufficiently strong to shape the spatial configuration, a structure that rarely changes. The effect varies across regions. On the one hand, trade enhances spatial agglomeration within regions with large home market and location advantages. On the other hand, trade induces dispersion within regions that lack access to international trade or historical advantage. These results hold when controlling for the natural course of agglomeration (region-specific time trends), congestion effects in main cities and road infrastructure within regions.

The issue of market access in international electricity trade deserves some scholarly attention, particularly in the light of the increasing commitment in combating climate change globally. The ongoing climate change problem represents both a challenge for the world and an opportunity for investors in the electricity sector. In crystallizing this opportunity, investors must bear in mind how much are the lights on in the markets where they would like to invest, which in turn should take them to look at the rules on market access that are explained in this article. Likewise, investors, governments, and businessmen alike should take into account what is the level of market access that prevails in their main export markets, even beyond the climate change problem. Against this backdrop, this article examines market access rules in international electricity trade under WTO Law and relevant regional trade arrangements. The ultimate goal of this piece is to flesh out the actual level of market access that prevails in the world for international electricity trade.

Although European Single Market (ESM) has been widely perceived as a model for regional integration, there continues to be considerable debate about the impact of this integration on the EU regions. Studies in this field have mainly investigated the convergence-divergence issue, while the effect of ESM on regional performance has attracted few empirical studies. The non-parametric metafrontier framework used in this study, as a first stage of analysis, is exploited to account for the heterogeneity between the Italian regions in the whole period and in two distinct time periods before and after EMU implementation. In a second stage, using a partial least squares model, the technology gaps estimated for each period have been regressed, investigating possible factors that may have affected regional performance. Our fndings reveal a signifcant improvement for the Italian regions since ESM implementation,a paradoxically unchanged behavior for efficiency performance in the Centre-North regions, and clear identifcation of specifically which regions performed better in terms of the technology gap. The inclusion of variables related to regional trade performance in the model indicates that trade balance is of major importance.

This paper investigates the trade-diversion effects of regional trade agreements (RTAs), so-called “Spaghetti bowl” Phenomenon (SBP), in multilateral trade. The SBP is due to the proliferation of RTAs. Thus, I investigate the relationship between the number of RTAs concluded by a country and the additional trade value attributed to an RTA. Using bilateral trade data in a sample of 119 countries, from 1995 to 2012, my main finding reveals a negative trade-effect between them, confirming the existence of SBP multilateral trade. However, results could not conclude evidence of a negative effect of overlapping RTAs, involving the existence of SBP, within North-North, North-South or South-South trade. But, the additional trade value attributed to an RTA concluded with EU countries or US seems to confirm significantly a trade-diversion effect because of the number of RTAs signed by these countries.

This piece provides a snapshot of the impact of the “mega-regional” trade deals -- the Transpacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership -- on India in trade and business terms. It considers their impact on India's trade regime, integration into global supply chains, ability to influence trade rules and India's own policy on free trade agreements. The piece argues for India to play a more proactive role in the global trade arena, while keeping in mind its own domestic constraints.

This paper examines how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can serve as engines for economic growth. Relevant international trends are explored before we home in on the regional experience, focusing on Central Asia. It should be noted that the number of SMEs engaged in trade in the region is relatively limited, making the potential for growth significant. The bulk of the paper will consider findings from the four research papers published by the Institute of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Central Asia (UCA), seeking to put them into a broader context. This synthesis report draws primarily on the following reports: • Export Driven SMEs in Kyrgyzstan: The Garment Sector (Jenish 2014). • Informality and Gender: Study on Kyrgyz SME sector (Kapalova 2014). • Small and Medium Enterprises Development and Regional Trade in Afghanistan (Mashal 2014). • Dynamics of the SME Sector in Tajikistan (Tilekeyev 2014). For the purposes of this synthesis paper, we focus on four cross-cutting themes that emerge from the case studies but that are also relevant to the development of the SME sector outside the three countries considered. The four common themes that will be dealt with in more detail are: size of SMEs; the informality of the sector; domestic bottlenecks to trade and women and their engagement in SMEs.

This paper will discuss about the proliferation of regional trade arrangements (RTAs). It reveals that RTAs bring many benefit to the member of the agreements. However the proliferation of RTAs has posed many threat to the global trading system. Those problems include: trade diversion, increasing transaction cost, diverting attention away from multilateral negotiations, custom problem and dispute settlement problem will be discussed in this essay. Moreover, this paper will also provide so recommendation to minimize the negative effect of RTAs. One of the priority policy is investing in capacity building for custom offices. The other solutions includes an initiative about establishing a pan-Asian or a pan American cumulation system as the example of pan European Cumulation System and allowing that dispute settlement in RTAs is exclusive to the WTO.

When the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995, it had less than 130 members. Since then membership has expanded to 159 as a result of 31 completed accessions. Of these, only six were least developed countries (LDCs). Another 24 countries are currently at various stages of the accession process; among these, nine are LDCs. Thus, although it can be argued that the WTO is approaching universal membership, quite a bit remains to be done in terms of LDC accessions. The purpose of this paper is to provide lessons for countries currently in the process of accession to the WTO, notably LDCs, based on the established practice and experience of other acceded countries. The paper does so by, first, providing a summary overview of WTO accessions and terms of accession of all countries that have acceded to the WTO under Article XII. It also considers recent changes in the WTO accession regime for LDCs, notably the enhanced Guidelines for WTO accession, and draws conclusions from these for the approach of LDCs to WTO accession. Secondly, the paper analyses in more detail the accession experience of selected acceded countries, namely small developing economies and LDCs. Accession countries which were members of regional trade agreement (RTAs) with common external trade policies are also considered. In particular, the paper takes all six acceded LDCs into account – Cambodia, Cape Verde, Lao PDR, Nepal, Samoa, and Vanuatu – as well as, with regard to the impact of RTA membership on WTO accessions, Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Tajikistan and Ukraine.

This paper explores the patterns of bilateral trade in Africa as a whole, and trade relationships within four regional trading blocs: COMESA, ECOWAS, SADC and ECCAS. Common network statistics are used to characterise and compare the structure of these regional trade arrangements in Africa, and network positions of countries both in the overall African trade network and within trading blocs. The analysis shows that the African trade link network has a star-like structure with larger economies such as South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Morocco, Cameroon, Algeria and Tunisia at the core, and smaller economies at the periphery. Further, the four trading blocs exhibit various levels of network cohesion. ECOWAS as the oldest trading bloc ranks highest in most network cohesion indicators, followed by COMESA and SADC. ECCAS consistently ranks lowest. Finer grained analysis however reveals a few surprises.

This paper analyses the role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Afghan economy; the challenges of developing SMEs in an infant market economy; how SMEs are coping with the military transition and declining aide. The paper also looks at the role of SMEs in Afghanistan’s trade with Central Asia and the hurdles impeding growth of that trade. The paper provides recommendations for strengthening SMEs and better - facilitating their role in trade.

We argue that the rise of regionalism reflects a world polity theory (WPT) logic, whereby it is legitimated and promoted through amendments to the "script of statehood" by credentialed experts, ritually and isomorphically taken up by states as a function of their need for legitimacy, and enacted and reproduced notwithstanding profound decoupling between embraced and realized goals. We test and find support for these claims on the empirical terrain defined by regional trade agreements (RTAs), using a variety of data and methods. While political economy models have much to tell us about the rise of regionalism, the sociological dynamics of this and related processes of institutional change deserve heightened attention in an increasingly integrated world polity.

Contained in the GATT, are provisions whose applications contradict each other. Article XXIV, which empowers WTO members to form regional trade agreements (RTAs), otherwise referred to as competitive liberalization, is contrary to the idea of the Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) principle set out article I. Indeed article XXIV is an exception to article I, however the conflict caused by these provisions, has led to a situation where the two will not co-exist for long, and one will eventually phase-out the other. While under article I, countries are prevented from discriminating between their trading partners, and any benefit granted to one member of the WTO must be extended to all WTO members; article XXIV gives countries the option of circumventing article I, to offer preferential trade benefits to only the select few with which they choose to trade through the formation of RTAs. Thus, conclusion of RTAs is a practice that is contrary to the interest of the World Trade Organization. Rules of origin present in most RTAs have a negative impact on competitive liberalization, a key goal of the WTO in combatting protectionism, as RTAs grant special treatment to members regardless of their inability to produce commodities more competitively than non-members due to the reciprocal benefits of RTAs. This seeks to frustrate the aims of the WTO in attempting to effectively regulate international trade, because while RTAs facilitate trade amongst its members; it hinders trade for non-member with which it has no trade desires. Regrettably, however, the WTO has faced increasing difficulty in the regulation of RTAs, in their manifold shapes and sizes.

This paper investigates the effect of regional borders on trade in Asia. The regional borders define the three regions of Asia : South, Southeast, and East Asia. Regional trade indicates the flows of trade within a region, whereas regional border trade means trade across regions. A gravity model is augmented with the region dummies to estimate the regional border effects that capture any and all time-invariant factors promoting or impeding regional trade. The main finding is that regional border effects are asymmetric on the three regions in Asia. There is a large and significant regional border effect on South Asia, small on Southeast Asia, and negligibly negative on East Asia. The significant and positive regional border effect in South Asia suggests that countries share intrinsic factors facilitating trade between the countries in this region. Although the regional border effect of Southeast Asia is positive, its magnitude shows little difference between its regional trade and regional border trade. Finally, the estimate on East Asia presents a completely different picture from the actual data. It implies that there exist some factors leading to active regional border trade between East Asia and other Asian regions.

The realisation of West Africa’s objective of economic growth and sustainable development has been the basis behind a further push towards regional integration over the past two decades. This paper puts up a case on the need for a harmonised system of laws to regulate commercial transactions within the region by addressing two core aspects of promoting regional trade namely: a) The existence of an economic body and;b) A legal system to govern the commercial laws of countries within the region. In light of the recent formation and success of OHADA, an organisation charged with the task of harmonising commercial laws in Africa, this paper analyses OHADAs impact and its potential for success if applied in across West Africa whilst comparing OHADA with other advocated approaches to the harmonisation of commercial law in West Africa.

This paper addresses the following key question. Why is it that African governments that enthusiastically sign trade liberalisation agreements at one point, so spectacularly fail to implement subsequent liberalisation provisions; a necessary step towards mutually desirable free trade gains. Why is it that African governments, generally seem eager to embrace trade liberalisation on paper, while they loath to act cooperatively to achieve it in practice?In addressing these questions, this paper does not attempt to dispute conventional explanations of the poor record of trade liberalisation in Africa, rather it seeks to compliment these explanations by providing a more comprehensive explanation which goes beyond simple material considerations. A new dimension embraces examination of the effects of strategic factors on governments implementing a regional trade liberalisation agreement.Using the game theoretic approach, this paper analyses problems of collective action and how they may prevent a group of regional governments from realising mutually beneficial gains from regional free trade.

It is well recognized in literature that countries having a better export performance also enjoying the better economic growth and vice versa. Above said statement raises a striking question: is the economic growth (GDP) and exports having strong linkages? The aim of present study is to test the above said question at regional level exports, especially in context of Pakistan’s exports to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to gauge the effectiveness of regional trade agreement. Study contributes literature in terms of regional level exports to test "economic growth and exports" relationship. Results revealed that Johansen cointegration test failed to affirm long run relationship between GDP and Pakistan’s exports to SAARC, hence, short-term relationship exist. Granger causality revealed unidirectional nature of causality from GDP to Pakistan’s exports to SAARC. The regulatory authorizes of developing nations should focus on the measures to improve their economic growth to gain the benefits from Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs).

The need for a pro-active more focused and more effective global mechanism to identify, control and mitigate the impact of economic and financial crisis has increasingly been felt over the last two decades. It got reinforced by not so effective IMF in terms of crisis control and mitigation as well as the occurrence and reoccurrence of several financial crises during the last few decades. Japan’s proposal to create Asian Monetary Fund (AMF), as an alternative to International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the midst of Asian Financial Crisis 1997, could be argued as an offshoot of this need. This research paper seeks to strengthen the role of IMF as a crisis control and mitigation institution and is based on two premises the effectiveness of an international institution such as the IMF is crucially dependent on the support provided by its stakeholders (such support has not been adequately leveraged in the case of the IMF) and their active participation in institutional mechanisms for averting crises, and regional trade associations could support the IMF in averting such crisis situation. The paper proposes facilitating such support through regional trade blocks, an important facilitator of regional growth, and elaborates on a mechanism in this regard involving a proposed Centre for Financial Crisis Management (CFM) under the IMF, and therefore could be known as IMF CFM.

Tajikistan, like other Central Asian countries, has a limited domestic market because of its relatively small population, no access to ports, is removed from major markets, and faces significant economic discord among its trading partners. Improving the transit infrastructure is one way of addressing these issues. This paper assesses Tajikistan’s pursuit of transit corridors and the establishment of multi-modal logistics services. It discusses the significant challenges and tough competition from neighbouring transit corridors that Tajikistan faces as it attempts to enhance its regional competitiveness.

This paper tests the hypothesis that overlapping and competing regional trade blocs undermine trade in Africa. Using the proposed merger of three trade blocs in the Eastern and Southern Africa region into a Free Trade Area and estimating gravity equations of bilateral trade flows, the hypothesis finds no support in the data. Instead, regional trade is a product of distance, adjacency, size dispersion and dual membership. I conclude that perceived negative effect of interregional borders may be exaggerated and hence a weak argument for merging the trade blocs.

This study looks at the factors that favored the economic integration under the auspices of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The information used in this study dates back to the inception of this regional trade agreement in May of 1975. In addition, the study also looks at the accomplishments and prospects as well as challenges for the future by investigating the political issues involved between the English speaking and French speaking member countries and the efforts made toward establishing a monetary union in West Africa. Finally, the statistical model utilized in this study embodied some of the previous findings of Linnermann (1966) and Deme (1995). It also embodied the statistical findings of Amponsah (2002) and Masson and Patillo (2001).

Since 2002 one main focus of the international donor organizations active in Afghanistan has been to address the necessity for closer trade ties between Afghanistan and Central Asian countries. The research sought to establish whether products from Central Asia, including those originating in Russia, meet the expectations of Afghan importers and if so, whether Afghan importers would be willing to switch to Central Asian suppliers for higher quality, healthier and safer products. The research finds that under certain conditions there is a reasonable possibility that Afghan importers would switch from their current suppliers to Central Asian suppliers.

Traditional literature takes gravity variables, regional economic agreement formation, and economy similarity as exogenous variables when discussing the determinants of the bilateral trade flows. This research uses the bilateral trade information from 1986 to 2008 and the common types of trade gravity models, such as the traditional cross-sectional model, three-way fixed effects model, and bilateral fixed effects model, to re-examine bilateral trade flow determinants. This article assumes that the trading economies’ similarity and the bilateral trade volumes’ similarity in percentage over foreign trade with each other, contribute to the parties’ willingness to be involved in the same regional trade group. The same are regarded as endogenous variables, which will be used to explore the gravity variables and the effect of the endogenous regional economic agreement on bilateral trade flow.

The proliferation of regional trade agreements (“RTAs”) behoves all WTO members to assess the extent to which RTAs depart from fundamental principles in the WTO such as the most-favoured-nation (“MFN”) treatment in the GATT and in particular, the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. This paper focuses on technical barriers to trade (“TBT”) provisions in RTAs concluded by the United States, European Union, Australia and Singapore and finds that these TBT provisions complement the existing disciplines in the TBT Agreement. To the extent that TBT provisions in RTAs may be inconsistent with the TBT Agreement, this paper examines the extent to which they can be justified under Article XXIV of GATT. This paper concludes that the ambiguity of key terms in Article XXIV of GATT allows WTO Members to adopt an expansive interpretation of the scope of Article XXIV of GATT.