Greater Arab Free Trade Area

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"GAFTA" redirects here. For the Grain and Feed Trade Association, see Grain and Feed Trade Association.

As of 1 January 2005, the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (also referred to as GAFTA) came into existence. GAFTA is a pact made by the Arab League to achieve a complete Arab economic bloc that can compete internationally. GAFTA is relatively similar to ASEAN. [1]

The Project was adopted in the Arab League Summit of Amman in 1997, with 17 Arab League members signing the pact, it is supervised and run by the Arab Economic Council in the Arab League. GAFTA has a high income, population, and area and has significant resources available. [2]

Contents

[edit] GAFTA today

[edit] Members

Membership of GAFTA
Membership of GAFTA

Members:

Possible future members:

[edit] Progress

The Greater Arab Free Trade Area was a project adopted in 1997, when 17 Arab League members agreed on decreasing the customs on local production and to make an Arab Free Zone for exports and imports between members. The members participate in 96% of the total internal Arab trade, and 95% with the rest of the world by applying the following conditions:

1-Instruct the inter-customs fees: To reduce the Customs on Arab products by 10% annually, the 14 Arab states reported their custom tariff programs to the Security Council of the Arab League to coordinate them with each others, except for Syria that is still using the Brussels tariffs system.

2-Applying the locality of the Arab products: All members have shared their standards and specifications to help their products move smoothly from one country to another. The League also created a project to apply the Arab Agriculture Pact: which is to share the standards of the agricultural sector and inject several more restrictions and specifications where all members have involved in them. The Arab league granted exceptions, which allow a customs rate for certain goods, to six members for several goods, however rejected requests by Morocco, Lebanon and Jordan for additional exceptions.

3-Private sectors: The League created a database and a service to inform and promote for the private's sectors benefits, and how there work would be in the GAFTA treaty is needed.

4-Communication: The Arab Economic and Social Council in its 65th meeting agreed on pointing a base for communication to ease communication between member states, and also to work to ease communication between the Private and public sectors to apply the Greater Arab Free Trade Area between members.

5-Customs Duties: In the 67th meeting the Arab Economic and Social Council agreed that the 40% decrease on customs on goods in the past 4 years of the GAFTA will continue and following the decisions of the Amman Summit of the Arab League, the members will put more efforts to eliminate all customs duties on local Arab goods.

[edit] Agadir Agreement

Map indicating current and potential future signatories of the Agadir Agreement.
Map indicating current and potential future signatories of the Agadir Agreement.

The Agadir Agreement for the Establishment of a Free Trade Zone between the Arabic Mediterranean Nations was signed in Rabat, Morocco on 25 February 2004.[3] The agreement aimed at establishing a free trade area between Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco and it was seen as a possible first step in the establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean free trade area as envisaged in the Barcelona Process.[4] All members of the Agadir Agreement have since joined the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, effectively superseding the agreement.

[edit] Comparison with other regional blocs

Most active regional blocs
(as of 2004, except as noted)
Regional bloc1 Area Population GDP ($US) Member
states1
km² sq mi in millions (PPP) in millions (nominal) per capita (PPP) per capita (nominal)
AU 29,797,500 11,504,879 897,548,804 1,515,000 1,131,850 1,896 1,261 53
ASEAN (2007 est.) 4,497,493 1,736,000 566,500,000 3,115,480 1,173,000 5,541 2,041 10
CACM 422,614 163,172 37,816,598 159,536 84,792 4,219 2,242 5
CARICOM 462,344 178,512 14,565,083 64,219 24,020 4,409 1,649 (14+1)3
CCASG / GCC 2,285,844 882,569 35,869,438 536,223 717,800 14,949 20,011 6
CEFTA 298,148 115,116 28,929,682 222,041 122,001 7,675 4,217 (7+1)3
EU (2007 est.) 4,324,782 1,669,808 497,000,000 14,953,000 16,574,000 28,213 33,482 27
EurAsEC 20,789,100 8,026,720 208,067,618 1,689,137 1,125,528 8,118 5,409 6
EFTA (2007 est.) 529,600 204,480 12,660,623 567,500 743,300 44,828 60,000 4
GAFTA 9,421,946 3,637,834 280,727,416 1,341,298 N/A 4,778 N/A (16+1)3
GUAM 810,506 312,938 63,764,600 456,173 106,469 7,154 1,670 4
NAFTA (2007 est.) 21,783,850 8,410,792 445,000,000 15,857,000 15,723,000 35,491 35,564 3
PARTA 528,151 203,920 34,137,339 23,074 N/A 2,954 N/A (14+2)3
SAARC 5,136,740 1,983,306 1,467,255,669 4,074,031 N/A 2,777 N/A 8
Unasur / Unasul 17,339,153 6,694,684 370,158,470 2,868,430 N/A 7,749 N/A 12
UN and countries
for reference2		 Area Population GDP ($US) Units4
km² sq mi in millions (PPP) in millions (nominal) per capita (PPP) per capita (nominal)
UN 133,178,011 51,420,318 6,411,682,270 55,167,630 48,245,198 8,604 7,524 192
Brazil (2007 est.) 8,514,877 3,287,612 183,888,841 1,804,000 1,067,706 10,073 6,842 27
Canada (2007 est.) 9,984,670 3,855,103 33,000,000 1,274,000 1,406,000 38,200 42,738 13
India (2007 est.) 3,287,590 1,269,346 1,120,000,000 4,726,000 1,089,000 4,182 1,004 35
Japan (2007 est.) 377,873 145,898 127,433,494 4,346,000 4,346,000 33,800 38,341 47
PR China5 (2007 est.) 9,596,960 3,705,407 1,321,851,888 7,043,000 3,420,000 5,300 2,800 33
Russia (2007 est.) 17,075,200 6,592,772 142,500,000 2,076,000 1,286,000 14,600 9,056 83
USA (2007 est.) 9,826,630 3,794,083 302,000,000 13,543,000 13,794,700 43,500 45,594 50
Source: CIA World Factbook 2005, IMF WEO Database, IMF nominal figures for 2006.[citation needed]
Legend
     smallest value among the blocs compared     largest value among the blocs compared

Footnotes
1 Including data only for full and most active members.
2 Including the largest five countries by area, population (not #4), GDP (PPP) (not #5), and GDP (nominal) (not #3 or #5).
3 Including non-sovereign autonomous areas of other states.
4 Members or administrative divisions.
5 Data for the People's Republic of China does not include Hong Kong, Macau, or the independent Republic of China (Taiwan) (over which PRC claims sovereignty).

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[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Jordanian Ministry of Industry & Trade describes GAFTA. Retrieved on 2008-03-18.
  2. ^ Full text of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area Agreement (1997). bilaterals.org (2005-07-17). Retrieved on 2008-03-18.
  3. ^ Full text of the Agreement (English version).
  4. ^ Wippel, Steffen. The Agadir Agreement and Open regionalism.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Arab_Free_Trade_Area"
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