regional integration :recent trends

REGIONAL INTEGRATION AGREEMENTS

Introduction

THE GROWTH OF REGIONAL TRADING BLOCS¡XOFTEN KNOWN as Regional Integration agreements (RIAs)¡Xis one of the major international relations developments of recent years.Most industrial and developing countries in the world are members of a regional integration agreement, and many belong to more than one: more than one-third of world trade takes place within such agreements.The structure of regional agreements varies hugely, but all have one thing in common¡Xthe objective of reducing barriers to trade between member countries. At their simplest they merely remove tariffs on intra bloc trade in goods, but many go beyond that to cover non tariff barriers and to extend liberalization to trade and investment. At their deepest they have the objective of economic union, and they involve the construction of shared executive, judicial, and legislative institutions. During the last decade the move to regionalism has bec...