TENDINŢE ŞI CONFIGURAŢII ALE ACORDURILOR COMERCIALE REGIONALE

• Main Author: Irina Tobosaru
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Danubius University 2008-05-01
• Series: EIRP Proceedings
• Online Access: http://www.proceedings.univ-danubius.ro/index.php/eirp/article/view/1098/1016

The proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has become a common term, în the pressand relevant literature, to account for the increasing number of RTAs being recorded în recent years. BetweenJanuary 2004 and February 2005 the total number of regional RTAs notified to the World Trade Organization was43, this period being the most prolific în the history of RTAs. In 2004, the global number of RTAs is 230. Animportant feature of the rise în the number of RTAs is the growing number of over-lapping agreements and the socalled“spaghetti bowl” that has emerged from the proliferation of bilateral agreements. Another trend is the socalledhub-and-spoke structure. In a hub-and-spoke trading system, the largest markets sign individual agreementswith a wide range of peripheral countries among which market access remains restricted. This article will try toexplain each of these features of RTAs în present.