Free Trade Area in Asia

There is a renewed interest in preferential trading agreements (PTAs) partly to face the challenge thrown by multi-lateral trade liberalisation and partly to benefit from the gains offered by PTAs, particularly RTAs. This book discusses the debate on the impact of PTAs on trade creation and trade diversion and whether PTAs are building block or stumbling block for multi-lateral trade liberalisation. While number of PTAs have grown in the world after WTO, Asia as a continent has not seen much progress towards regional integration. The book analyses inter country, intra-Asia and extra-Asia trade for each country and for different formations of Asia to examine internal dynamics for integration. It then proceeds to draw implications of RTA in Asia on regional and global welfare.