Market access provisions on trade in goods in regional trade agreements

The goal of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of the market access provisions that apply to trade in goods contained in regional trade agreements (RTAs) notified to the WTO and in force. Although a number of studies have looked at market access provisions in trade in goods, much of this work has been limited to subsets of RTAs, particularly plurilateral RTAs involving three or more parties. Th e goal of this study is to expand beyond the more commonly studied RTAs and to include all RTAs notified to the WTO for which data are available. A previous study published in 2012 surveyed the market access provisions applicable in merchandise trade for 193 RTAs in force at that time. Since then the number of RTAs has continued to grow. As of December 2014, more than 250 RTAs containing provisions on trade in goods have been notified to the WTO and are in force. The majority of these RTAs – more than 80 per wto_cent – were notified to the WTO in the last ten years or so.