Preferential Trade Agreements and Trade Liberalization Efforts in the OIC Member States
With Special Emphasis on the TPS-OIC
159
involved. This is not just for the sake of completeness but also since it can shed additional light and
precision on the likely effects of an agreement. Moreover, despite the general analysis of the trade
patterns of the OIC members made in section 5.2.1, it is necessary to highlight some specificities of
the intra and external trade of the countries that are part of the TPS-OIC.
In principle, given that the agreement is relatively recent (it entered into force in August 2011 after
the Rules of Origin agreement was ratified by its tenth member), and given data limitations, it is
unlikely that existing data can reveal the impact of the process of liberalisation. Even in agreements
with important liberalisation provisions, it can take time for this to impact on the trade flows. In our
case an additional complication is that not all the Parties of TPS-OIC System have accurately and
constantly reported their trade. In a number of cases it is hard to find some recent data. This makes a
general analysis based on the trade of this group more difficult.
Nevertheless, we undertake an assessment of the main trade trends and patterns with the objective
of performing a prospective evaluation of the agreement. Referring back to the discussion earlier in
the report, as opposed to being an ex-post assessment, this exercise should be seen more as an ex-
ante exercise. This suggests that the results should be interpreted in terms of assessing the likelihood
of certain effects as opposed to precise predictions, or an evaluation of the effects that are known to
have occurred.
Figure 72 presents the evolution of the exports of each of the Parties of TPS-OIC System to the rest of
the Contracting Countries of TPS-OIC40. With the exception of Pakistan and Jordan, the typical share
of the exports to the other Parties of TPS-OIC System in each of the member countries does not
exceed 10%. This is the case for the GCC, Turkey and Malaysia for whom and for different reasons (as
we will see), the share of the TPS in their trade is small. However, as can also be seen, the share of the
TPS-OIC in each of their member’s exports is generally growing. As an example, exports of Jordan to
the Contracting Countries of TPS-OIC have grown from nearly 15% to almost 24% between 2003 and
2013. For the rest of the countries, the growth is not so pronounced.
* While Morocco also completed all the necessary procedures of the TPS-OIC System, it could not be included
to the analysis in this section as it has conveyed its list of concession in late September.