A free trade agreement removes all barriers to trade between members, which means they can move freely between goods and services. As far as relations with non-members are concerned, the trade policy of each member is always effective. Many SAAs contain elements that deepen regulatory cooperation and new market opportunities are created, even as participants tackle structural barriers in their own economies. Next-generation ASAs aspire to go further. Countries that wish to participate in and benefit more from global markets need to increasingly integrate trade and investment measures into their broader domestic structural reforms. Indeed, countries may be able to use current and future negotiations on « beyond the border » regulatory rules as drivers of desired national reforms. The biggest structural question of whether, when and how the provisions of the ITAs can be multilateralized is first and foremost a political issue that governments must address. Regional trade agreements have the following advantages: trade agreements, which the WTO refers to as preferential, are also referred to as regional agreements (RTAs), although they are not necessarily concluded by countries in a given region. As of July 2007, 205 agreements are currently in force. More than 300 have been notified to the WTO. [10] The number of free trade agreements has increased considerably over the past decade. Between 1948 and 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of the WTO, received 124 notifications. Since 1995, more than 300 trade agreements have been concluded.
[11] Regional trade agreements vary according to the level of commitment and agreement between Member States. The legitimacy of IAS by GATT served as a basis for the development of what eventually became the European Union, starting with sectoral cooperation in the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952 and enlargement to a customs union with the negotiations on the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Although the Europe Agreements probably did not meet the GATT criteria for ATRs, other governments did not reject them, not least because they prevail over Cold War security objectives, which were supposed to be supported by European integration. Europe`s attempts to promote faster economic growth through a regional agreement (and to offer its production companies a protected base) sparked a wave of imitators in Africa and Latin America in the 1960s. However, few of these agreements have survived the political tensions that have arisen among their members, particularly with regard to the distribution of the benefits of regional cooperation. Deep trade agreements are an important institutional infrastructure for regional integration. They reduce trade costs and set many of the rules under which economies operate. If made effective, they can improve political cooperation between countries, thereby increasing international trade and investment, economic growth and social welfare.
World Bank Group studies show that there are a large number of trade agreements; some are quite complex (European Union), while others are less intense (North American Free Trade Agreement). [8] The degree of economic integration that results from this depends on the specific nature of the trade pacts and policies of the trading bloc: many governments are increasingly recognising the need to ensure that trade and investment agreements reflect environmental concerns in order to contribute to the achievement of cross-cutting environmental objectives and increase their public acceptance. . . .