The Global Preferential Trade Agreements Database (GPGTAD) provides information on trade agreements around the world. The database, developed jointly by the World Bank and the Center for International Business at Dartmouth College`s Tuck School of Business, contains textual versions of all bilateral, free trade and customs union agreements since 1 June 2003. The case against RTAs focuses on this discriminatory nature, which contradicts the basic principle of the post-war trade regime. Some countries may find themselves excluded from RTAs because others do not see them as markets large enough to justify investing the bureaucratic resources needed to negotiate and implement agreements. Similarly, countries that are not considered reliable partners due to the nature of their political systems are likely to be excluded. These concerns are especially true for smaller, less developed economies. In addition, political factors can play an important role both in influencing the choice of potential partners and in determining the outcome of negotiations. For the weaker countries, the great advantage of the post-war multilateral trade regime was that it largely removed political considerations from trade issues. RTAs also pave the way for power considerations to dictate the terms of agreements. Studies on the recent wave of RTAs have shown that less developed countries have made more concessions than developed countries in regional partnerships involving countries with different levels of economic development. While gatt was intended to promote tariff reductions among Member States and thus provide a basis for the expansion of multilateral trade, there were more and more waves of regional trade agreements in the following period. Less than five years after the creation of GATT, by creating the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, Europe would embark on a programme of regional economic integration that would eventually become what we know today as the European Union (EU).

In 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) replaced GATT as the global watchdog for world trade liberalization following the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. While gatt was mainly limited to goods, the WTO went much further by incorporating policies in the areas of services, intellectual property and investment. At the beginning of the 21st century, the WTO had more than 145 members, with China joining in 2001. ( Search for documents online General documents on regional trade agreements are coded as WT/REG/*. As part of the mandate of the Doha trade negotiations, they use TN/RL/* (where * assumes additional values). These links will open a new window: wait a moment for the results to appear. In the early 1980s, the form of U.S. trade agreements began to change. Until then, successive post-war U.S.

governments pursued only comprehensive global trade agreements and criticized preferential agreements limited to a few countries. Europe`s common market and economic union have been largely exempted from this criticism because of the broader geopolitical implications – notably those that held together the nations that had fought two catastrophic wars in the first half of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, U.S. policymakers have consistently condemned Britain`s preferential trade agreements with the former colonies, as well as France`s preferential treatment of certain trading partners. The Trade Bloc Insights section of GlobalEDGE provides detailed analysis and resources organized by the world`s leading trading blocs. Discover statistics and resources that tell you about trade agreements and their economic impact. Read a detailed history of each trading bloc, a timeline of key dates, and a list of member countries for each trade agreement. Deep trade agreements are an important institutional infrastructure for regional integration. They reduce trade costs and set many of the rules by which economies work.

If made effective, they can improve political cooperation between countries, thereby increasing international trade and investment, economic growth and social prosperity. Research by the World Bank Group has revealed that: Regional trade agreements are a subsection of the official World Trade Organization website. It includes an explanation of the rules for negotiating regional trade agreements (RTAs), related statistics and some articles on regional trade agreements. It also lists examples of regional trade agreements. Many RTAs contain elements that deepen cooperation on regulatory issues, and new market opportunities are created even as participants tackle structural barriers in their own economies. Next-generation RTAs are striving to go even further. Countries that want to participate in and benefit even more from global markets need to increasingly integrate trade and investment measures into their broader national structural reform programmes. In fact, countries may be able to use current and future negotiations on regulatory provisions “across the border” as a driver for desired national reforms. The broader structural question of whether, when and how RTA provisions should be multilateral is first and foremost a political issue that governments need to address. The EU and NAFTA appear to have succeeded in boosting intra-regional trade and investment flows in the 1990s. And contrary to some fears, they have not developed into closed trading blocs that have increased discrimination against non-members.

Their apparent success has encouraged other countries to conclude their own regional agreements (a development reinforced by the slow progress in WTO negotiations). The pace of regionalism accelerated dramatically after the mid-1990s, spreading to regions such as East Asia, where there were previously few RTAs. As of May 2003, more than 265 RTAs had been notified to the WTO (and its predecessor, GATT). More than half of this total was notified after the creation of the WTO in January 1995. More than 190 of these agreements are currently in force. Since agreements binding only developing countries are not subject to Article XXIV and are sometimes not notified to the WTO, the actual number of RTAs in force is much higher – probably more than 250. At the end of 2003, only one of the WTO`s 146 members – Mongolia – was not a party to a regional trade agreement. Commentators are divided on the impact of RTAs on participants, non-participants and the global trading system as a whole. Traditionally, all forms of trade liberalization, including those involving only a small number of participants, have been viewed positively by economists. However, in the early post-war years, Jacob Viner showed that the selective elimination of tariffs might not improve welfare, as the tariff preferences created could divert trade from efficient producers outside the region to less efficient producers in the region. East Asian textile exporters, for example, found themselves at a disadvantage in the U.S. market compared to Mexican suppliers after NAFTA was signed, although many of them are more efficient producers.

Global well-being suffers from countries` discrimination against the most efficient suppliers. Policymakers recognize the need for regional trade agreements to be consistent with multilateral rules and the need to ensure coherence among regional agreements and between regional and multilateral systems. Some countries are even negotiating RTAs through the express intention of setting a precedent for the development of future multilateral rules, while others see deeper action in regional partnerships as a way to complement the multilateral system. .