The South Asian Free Trade Agreement

Which Way Forward

Bibliographic Data

ID12321986
AuthorsDushni Weerakoon (Deputy Director and Fellow Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, corresponding author), Jayanthi Thennakoon (Research Officer Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka)
Year2008
Volume3
Issue1
Pages135-149
Publication date2008-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of South Asian Development (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0973-1741 • E-ISSN: 0973-1733
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/097317410700300106
OpenAlexW2088249895
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited4

The South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), due to have been implemented starting July 2006, has adopted a negative list approach permitting member countries to potentially exclude a substantial share of intraregional trade from the tariff liberalisation process. This study finds that the excluded trade amounts to nearly 53 per cent of current import trade amongst South Asian countries, bringing into question the future prospects for meaningful economic cooperation under a regional framework. At the very least, if the SAFTA treaty had built on the existing bilateral FTAs in the region, it would eventually have come to supersede such agreements. Unfortunately, the regional initiative has lagged well behind the bilateral process, and is likely to be overtaken by alternative strategic trade policy initiatives cropping up in the region. It seems likely that attempts at economic integration of the South Asian region under the SAARC framework is liable to fragment

Business · Economic integration · Economics · Free trade · Free trade agreement · International economics · International free trade agreement · International trade · Liberalization · Political science · Regional Integration · Regional trade · Rules of origin · South asia · Tariff · Trade barrier · Trade diversion · Treaty · Global Trade and Competitiveness · Global trade and economics · World Trade Organization Law

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub