Regional trade agreement

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A regional trade agreement is an economic trade agreement to reduce tariffs and restrictions on trade between two or more nations within a certain region. In today's economy, trade in service is just as important as trade in goods. Trade agreements, therefore, need to include answers to questions such as when and why people will be permitted to work across international borders, what qualifications they will need, what standards will be applied to their work, and how people's ideas will be protected. This was based on exchange between cities and the surrounding lands. The improvement in the countryside led to an agriculture surplus for trade. The cities needed food for their inhabitants and provided craft work for the rural areas.

RTAs are preferential trade agreements and therefore different from arrangements such as APEC, which are open not preferential. RTAs come in different forms: 1. An FTA is a group of two or more customs territories which has eliminated tariffs and other trade restrictions on substantially all trade. 2. A Customs Unions is two or more customs territories which have an FTA and which also apply a common external tariff on goods from non-members. 3. A regional economic integration agreement is the next step: it can include the free movement of capital as well as goods and services, a common currency and a common economic policy

The McGill Faculty of Law runs a Regional Trade Agreements Database that contains the text of almost all preferential and regional trade agreements in the world. ptas.mcgill.ca