Impact of trade facilitation measures and regional trade agreements on food and agricultural trade in South Asia

Abstract

South Asia has been considered as the least integrated region in the world despite its attempts to liberalize trade using various unilateral, bilateral, regional and multilateral arrangements. It has long been argued that the limited success of South Asia to liberalize regional trade was due to limited tariff reductions and remaining barriers present in trade agreements; less complementarities in production and consumption; and political friction among the countries. More recent studies indicate that smaller trade gains in South Asia is mainly due to the fact that inadequate attention was paid to trade facilitation measures such as efficiency of customs and other border procedures, quality of transport, and cost of international and domestic transport. In this context, the objective of this study is to provide quantitative estimates on gains that can be acquired from improving trade facilitation in South Asia, focusing on exports of food and agricultural commodities.

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