Preferential trade and agreements: An update

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1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-222
Author(s):  
Khwaja Sarmad

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established In 1967 as a loosely structured inter-governmental organization, which provided a framework for discussing problems that required a regional solution. For a long time, the reduction of regional political tensions remained the main concern of ASEAN. Serious efforts towards promoting intra-regional co-operation began in 1976 with emphasis on trade liberalization and industrial co-operation. But apart from a few cases, involving the regional economies and collective external bargaining, the record of economic co-operation has been poor, because of different levels of economic development of the member countries, mutually competitive exports.. inward• looking industrial policies and heavy dependence on the industrialized countries for investment, technology and trade. So far, there have been only three intra-ASEAN agreements to promote market sharing and a pooling of resources: the preferential trade arrangements, the industrial complementation agreement, designed to develop links in certain industries to achieve greater economies of scale, and the industrial joint venture agreement, which provides preferential treatment for products of joint ventures involving the companies of at least two ASEAN member countries. However the joint venture scheme has had only limited success because of delays in implementation, while the scope of the preferential trading arrangements has been limited by the consensus approach in solving outstanding issues and by the concern of higher-tariff member countries to protect domestic production and employment. As a result, tariffs have been reduced only on intra-regional trade of selected non-sensitive items. Most of the items covered in the preferential trade agreements have low trade content and minimal trade potential. The arrangements have also been difficult to manage because of problems of administering the rules of origin.


Author(s):  
Leonardo Borlini

An increasingly important aspect of EU trade policy since the lifting of its self-imposed moratorium on preferential trade agreements (PTAs) has been the inclusion of WTO+ provisions on subsidies in bilateral agreements negotiated with a number of third countries. This article covers the main bilateral PTAs negotiated after the publication of the Commission’s Communication on ‘Global Europe’ in order to explore the implications of the different subsidy disciplines they set out. It also discusses the questions that arise when examining the legal discipline of public aid provided by such agreements, regarding not only the substantive appropriateness of standards and rules on compatibility, but also the procedural mechanisms designed to guarantee the implementation and the enforcement of such rules. It concludes that the most advanced among the EU PTAs are shaped as competition regulation and go beyond a mere negative function, ensuring that subsidies can contribute to fundamental public goals.


2006 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 896-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Limão

Most countries are members of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). The effect of these agreements has attracted much interest and raised the question of whether PTAs promote or slow multilateral trade liberalization, i.e., whether they are a “building block” or “stumbling block” to multilateral liberalization. Despite this long-standing concern with PTAs and the lack of theoretical consensus, there is no systematic evidence on whether they are actually a stumbling block to multilateral liberalization. We use detailed data on U.S. multilateral tariffs to provide the first systematic evidence that the direct effect of PTAs was to generate a stumbling block to its MTL. We also provide evidence of reciprocity in multilateral tariff reductions.


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