COMCEC Trade Outlook 2017
7
2016, all members participate to the existing RTAs or initiate new ones. The European
Union, The European Free Trade Association (EFTA), The North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), The Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), The Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Free Trade Area (AFTA), and the Common Market of Eastern
and Southern Africa (COMESA) are among the best known RTAs. WTO notes that most of both
the existing RTAs in force and the new negotiations are bilateral. However there is a new trend
for plurilateral RTAs involving several WTO members. Among these are the Asia-Pacific Region
for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, the Pacific Alliance in Latin America and the
Tripartite Agreement between parties to COMESA, EAC and SADC in Africa8. As of July 2017, the
number of RTAs in force reached 293. Figure 5 shows the increasing number of RTAs since 1980.
Figure 5: Evolution of RTAs (in force) in World
Source: WTO database
Box 1: Regional Trade Agreements
Table-A below could be used to evaluate whether the steady increase in the number of regional
agreements in recent years affected the trade between member countries. As may be observed
from the table, the EU has the largest intra-trade shares, with intra-export and intra-import
shares were 64 per cent and 60 per cent respectively. For NAFTA, intra-export was 50 per cent
while intra-imports was 33 percent. However in ASEAN, most of the trade (77 per cent) was
with the countries out of the agreement. On the other hand, when some RTAs in the OIC region
evaluated; intra-export shares in total trade remained small for GCC, ECO, ECOWAS andWAEMU
ranging between 8 to 14 per cent.
8
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
1980198119821983198419851986198719881989199019911992199319941995199619971998199920002001200220032004200520062007200820092010201120122013201420152016
Cumulative Number
Number per year