OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers

ISSN :
1815-6797 (online)
DOI :
10.1787/18156797
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Selected studies on various food, agriculture and fisheries issues from the OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate.

NB. No. 1 to No. 58 were released under the previous series title OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Working Papers.

 

Regional Trade Agreements - Treatment of Agriculture You or your institution have access to this content

Authors:
Linda Fulponi1, Matthew Shearer2, Juliana Almeida2
Author Affiliations
  • 1: OECD, France

  • 2: Inter-American Development Bank, United States

Publication Date
31 Mar 2011
Bibliographic information
No.:
44
Pages
10
DOI
10.1787/5kgg53fmnjxv-en

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This study develops earlier OECD work on the treatment of agriculture in regional trade agreements for Latin America by extending the geographic coverage to Asia-Pacific and selected agreements in Africa. It covers over 50 regional trade agreements with respect to market access, subsidies, trade remedies, and requirements relating to sanitary & phytosanitary measures (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT). These are compared to the requirements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in order to assess whether they provide for greater market access. Most of the agreements studied show substantial progress with respect to tariff elimination in conformity with Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Agricultural export subsidies are banned in over half the agreements, signalling greater trade liberalisation. However, there is much less progress made in the areas of SPS and TBT.
Keywords:
Article XXIV GATT, tariff elimination, regional trade agreements, free trade agreements, SPS measures
JEL Classification:
  • F1: International Economics / Trade
  • F13: International Economics / Trade / Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
  • Q10: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Agriculture / General
  • Q27: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Renewable Resources and Conservation / Issues in International Trade