Utility of Regional Trade Agreements: Experience from India’s Regionalism
This paper formulated in the context of the Indian experience in regionalism. In the past decade, India’s trade policy has seen a marked shift towards regionalism with the signing of many regional trade agreements (RTAs). As of May 2011, 13 RTAs were in force, with at least eight more under negotiations. This paper explores whether these RTAs were ultimately of use to Indian traders. To assess the usefulness of an RTA to traders, percentage ratios, like utilization, product-coverage and utility ratios, are generally calculated.