Preferential Trade Agreements and Trade Liberalization Efforts in the OIC Member States
With Special Emphasis on the TPS-OIC
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agreements. As an example, among the analysed agreements WAEMU has the most ambitious
competition policy provisions. The Community’s competition policy in WAEMU is partly
modelled on the example of the EU competition policy (with a very important role of the
European Commission). However, the effectiveness of its implementation is assessed as below
earlier expectations (Bakhoum and Molestina, 2012).
While the intensity of intra-RTA trade differs significantly between agreements it should be
noted that many of the discussed RTAs are established between countries that trade with each
other relatively little. In some other cases (notably the Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus customs
union), the common external tariff sets tariffs applicable to imports from other countries at
relatively high level that could be expected to lead to trade diversion.
Finally, it is worth noting that it is typically very difficult to precisely identify trade effects
emerging because of the agreements. This owes inter alia to multiplicity of other forces at play,
including simultaneous implementation of other RTAs, changes in MFN tariffs, actions taken on
NTMs or other developments.