Publication: Regional Integration and Development in Small States
Date
2002-02
ISSN
Published
2002-02
Author(s)
Schiff, Maurice
Abstract
The author examines the impact of
various trade policies for small developing states in the
face of changing international trends - including
globalization, the proliferation of regional integration
agreements, the changing relationship between African,
Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries and the European
Union (EU), the erosion of ACP preferences in the EU market,
the Everything-But-Arms Initiative (a 2001 EU initiative
providing forty nine developing countries free access to EU
markets), and the negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement
of the Americas. The author concludes that: 1) The
participants in South-South regional integration agreements
should further reduce their external trade barriers. 2) The
trade component of the Cotonou Agreement between the ACP
countries and the EU is likely to harm those countries. The
ACP countries should liberalize their trade regimes to
reduce the size of transfers to the EU. 3) Small states
should sign free trade agreements with the rest of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD), and pursue multilateral liberalization. 4) Small
states, and other developing countries should intensify
South-South regional cooperation in the area of regional
public goods. 5) The EU, and other OECD countries should
provide country-specific technical assistance for
"behind the border" reforms in small states -
something specified in the Cotonou Agreement for ACP
countries - as well as assistance in implementing their
commitments under World Trade Organization agreements.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Schiff, Maurice. 2002. Regional Integration and Development in Small States. Policy Research Working Paper;No.2797. © World Bank, Washington, D.C.. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14859 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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