Preferential Trade Agreements and Trade Liberalization Efforts in the OIC Member States
With Special Emphasis on the TPS-OIC
61
Table 5:Evolution of the Share of Intra RTA Trade as a % of Total RTA Exports)
Agreement 1990 2000 2010
ASEAN 18.87 22.92 25.14
CARICOM 11.89 18.32 18.31
EAC 29.83 19.79 23.17
ECOWAS 29.04 9.04 6.8
EU 66.71 65.52 63.38
GCC 1.33 1.6 2.53
Mercosur 8.89 21.07 16.23
NAFTA 41.9 56.34 48.75
OIC2000 5.65 8.49
SAARC 3.46 4.27 6.01
WAEMU 25.66 19.18 15.4
Source: UN Comtrade. OIC2000 refers to those OIC countries who reported trade data in 2010 and
2000, hence the number of countries over these two years is being held constant. See section 5.2.1
for a more detailed explanation.
Table 5 gives the evolution of the share of intra-RTA trade across selected RTAs over the
period 1990 to 2010. It can be seen that, in general, the share of intra-agreement trade has
grown across all the agreements 11. Intra-regional trade is high and has grown notably in the
case of ASEAN, NAFTA and Mercosur (at least in the initial period). In the case of the European
Union and NAFTA, the share has remained consistently high. It is interesting to note that the
regions where the share is the highest (Asean, EU, NAFTA) are also regions where there is
more integrated value chain activity, and intermediate input trade. The share of intra-regional
trade within the OIC has almost doubled over this period; though it is comparatively low
compared to some of the other agreements, and similarly for the GCC and for 11The fall in
ECOWAS and WAEMU is explained by the changes in the composition of the countries
reporting trade data over the years, and therefore these numbers should be treated with
caution SAARC.
As previously mentioned, although the Understanding on Art.XXIV has played a part in the
increase in the number of RTAs, there are also important economic factors driving this growth,
and it is to this that we now turn.
Speeding up Reform
The Uruguay Round introduced important and much-welcomed reforms to the international
trading system. To the GATS and the understanding on Art. XXIV, it is necessary to add the
Agreement on Agriculture which introduced disciplines that would potentially benefit many
developing countries. The agreement also generated the standardisation of border protection
by requesting the transformation of all border measures into tariff equivalents. This set limits