Chapter V specifically emphasizes India’s recent initiatives towards entering into PTAs with East and South-East Asian countries. The chapter critically analyses the depth of PTAs between India and important players in IPNs in order to decide whether they contain the necessary coverage and...

Although textile and apparel imports from most countries entered the United States quota-free after the expiration of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing on January 1, 2005, substantial restraints remain on U.S. trade in these sectors, including high tariffs, quantitative restraints on China...

With globalization and advances in information and communication technology (ICT) leading to growing international production sharing, amidst the increasing trend in preferential trading arrangements (PTAs), rules of origin (ROO) has been beset with difficult recurring issues. First and foremost...

Striking a balance between trade facilitation and preventing trade deflection is the single most difficult challenge with regard to the issue of rules of origin (ROO). ASEAN ROO is already considered as among the simplest in the world and still, in practice, results fall short of expectations....

Determining origin within the context of international trade is not simple. Rules of Origin (ROOs) would involve laws, regulations and administrative determinations to ascertain a products country of origin which are not costless to comply with. As such, the criteria used to define origin and...

Rules of origin (ROO) have emerged as an area in which consensus is hard to achieve among negotiating countries within an RTA. Disagreements over rules of origin have often deferred the implementation of several trade agreements. One of the reasons for this is because ROO are viewed as those...

The paper discusses the state of the Philippine Garments Industry, with specific focus on its competitiveness and logistics infrastructure, and how the industry can make use of the prospective Free Trade Agreement with the US. With the signing of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing on January...

We summarise salient developments in the interaction of the multilateral trading system and multilateral trading agreements (MTAs) on the one hand and regional trading agreements (RTAs) on the other. We then consider the economic effects of RTAs, comparing customs unions with free trade...

This paper compares free trade areas and customs unions in terms of their potential to liberalize trade. While neither arrangement is shown to be unambiguously preferable, this paper generates specific conditions that determine when customs unions are preferred to free trade areas. The ranking...

In a model of vertical product differentiation, duopolistic firms face quality-dependent costs and compete in quality and price in two segmented markets. Minimum quality standards, set according to the principle of Mutual Recognition, can be used to increase welfare. The results of the one-shot...