Advantages And Disadvantages Of Regional Trading Blocs Such As The Eu

Regional trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) reduced barriers to trade in the form of a cooperative alliance and an elimination of taxes on trade goods between the United States, Canada and Mexico. The influence of this trade agreement was beneficial to businesses because it became easier to trade goods across international borders and it increased the development of standards. The European Union alliance works in a similar way to facilitate trade by standardizing laws and agreements, as well as using a standard currency among all of the countries. The development of these alliances was to increase competitiveness and to decrease inequality. The winners are the larger corporations who have the resources to dominate larger markets. The losers are the small individual and family owned businesses that do not have the same resources to ante up in a global market.

Trade blocs are inter-governmental agreements between states, regions, or countries, to reduce barriers to trade and to bring economic benefits to the participating regions members. There are several types of trading bloc depending on the levels of commitments and arrangement between the members:

With the lowest integrated level in regional economic integration, Free Trade Arrangement (FTA) is applied most frequently, accounting for almost 90% of regional integration. (Hill 2007) Theoretically, all trade barriers both tariffs and non-tariff ones are eliminated in an ideal FTA. However, each member countries are free to determine independent trade policies against nonmember countries. (Hill 2007) Currently, the number of free trade arrangements is proliferating. FTA spread almost all over the world with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are the most famous trade blocs. Additionally, in the Northeast Asia, China, Japan and

Free trade areas, FTA, are economic integration arrangements in which barriers to trade (e.g. tariffs), exchange of goods and information among member nations are removed. It is arguable to say that fair trade aims to create equilibrium between LEDC's, less economically developed countries and developed nations in terms of trading activities and ethics. In saying this, free trading between more economically developed countries and LEDC's will mean

The third level of economic integration is the common market. “A common market, has no barriers to trade among member countries, including external trade policy, and allows factors of production to move freely among members” (Hall, 2015 pg. 258). In addition to production moving freely among

In ASEAN we used AFTA or Asean Free Trade Area. It is a trade bloc agreement by Association of Southeast Asia Nation. Under AFTA, there are six countries of Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) including Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Brunei, and Thailand are no tariffs on approximately 8,000 product. Another four developed ASEAN nations will have further period to phase in tariff cuts. In Asean we trade everything not only goods and services, but the citizen also can go around these countries without visa and people can find job more easily. Because when the country had opened for all members in ASEAN people can work in the proper ways not work illegal in other ASEAN countries.

As we know trading blocks are breaking down into several different union, and different countries gather up in order to make trade intensely with each other. But that is just a brief definition, because the intense trades could as reflect no more than variable in comparative advantage. According to, “ What mainly matters is that each of these agreements allows trade between the participating countries to take place more easily and at lower cost.”(Economic theory and policy for trading blocks, 1994).

The more one explores this subject, though, the more anomalies are thrown up. For instance, it is common to talk of the Single Market acquis is if it was a monolithic block, common to the entire area. Yet, that is not the case. There is unrestricted trade in agricultural products between the EU-28 but not within the EEA. The Efta states are not part of that market.

According to its supporters, free trade policies allow countries to specialize in goods which they can naturally and efficiently produce. Countries generally try to be self-sufficient by using the resources they have to produce everything they need and the main reason behind this is to avoid the expenses of trade. However with trade becoming far cheaper due to the removal of barriers, each country that previously did this can now focus on what they need to produce and trade what they are not efficient at rather than wasting resources by producing everything possible. Furthermore, this not only means the resources are being put to better use but it also means that the country can trade at a lower cost due to the removal of barriers and can now put those finance’s into better use. Another advantage is that as time goes on and MNC’s set up in different countries, local firms have the opportunity to access some of the latest technology from some of the more developed countries of the world. Moreover, the world becomes a more competitive environment since MNC’s move and local firms have to match up to their par leading them to either gain from this exponentially as well as be able to grow in the near future to become a big firm in order to compete with the MNC or to join with them.

Free trade blocs are intergovernmental agreements that limit regional barriers to trade by integrating different economies. The four types of trade blocs are Preferential Trade Area, Free Trade Area, Customs Union, and Common Market. The specific trade blocs included in this analysis are Mercosur, North American Free Trade Agreement, European Union.

The current international system is characterized by growth in globalization hence regional integration is becoming a common phenomenon in most parts of the world. As a result of states becoming more interconnected, most of them have opted for regional integration so as to enhance trade between states thus boosting economies of the states as well as the regions as a whole. Besides free trade, regional integration has seen to it the elimination of trade barriers, free movement of goods and people across borders, regional co-operation in issues to do with peace and security within the regions among various other benefits of regional integration. One of the regions that has grown as a result of regional integration is the European Union (EU), which is an economic and political partnership composed of 28 European countries. This paper will focus on the EU and give a theoretical analysis of the Brexit while giving lessons of integration and liberalization based on the Brexit.

Regional economic integration has allowed countries to concentrate on issues that pertain to their respective stages of development, in addition to encouraging trade between neighbors. There are five main stages of economic integration: Free trade area, customs union, common market, economic union and political union. Free trade areas exist as the most basic type of economic cooperation. Here, member countries remove all trade barriers but remain free to determine their own trade policies with nonmember nations. An example of this is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Customs unions are similar to free trade zones in that they provide economic cooperation, along with the elimination of trade barriers among member countries. The primary difference from the free trade area is that trade with nonmember countries are treated in a similar fashion as trade with member countries. An example of this is The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Common markets exist to create economically integrated markets between member countries. Trade barriers are removed, in addition to any restrictions on the capital and labor movement between member countries. Similar to customs unions, there is a common trade policy with nonmember nations. The primary advantage to workers is that a visa or work permit is not required for employment in another member country of a common market. An example is the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Economic union is created when

The regulation of international trade is done through the World Trade Organization at the global level, and through several other regional arrangements such as MERCOSUR in South America, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada and Mexico, and the European Union between 27 independent states.

The first one, according to relevant literature is the so-called free trade agreement, FTA. Under this arrangement countries will eliminate restrictions with their other ‘club members’, but will continue to add independent

At the other end of the scale, we have free trade, a system which favours the exchange of goods and Nowadays, this is the predominant system in Europe, promoted by the EU both in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) context and bilaterally with certain regions. There are three basic approaches to international trade liberalisation. In the first place, we have the international approach, whose purpose is a multilateral reduction in trade restrictions. The organizational framework in which these negotiations are conducted is the WTO, which superseded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), created after World War II to boost economic recovery (Kreinin, M., 2016).