Growing Together: Economic Integration for an Inclusive and - escap

CHAPTER TWO
59
Towards a broader integrated market
51 The 15 regional trade agreements include also three
plurilateral cross-continental trade agreements. For
more details, see Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment
Agreements Database (APTIAD), http://www.unescap.
org/tid/aptiad/.
52 See Kumar, 2007a.
53 See Kumar, 2007b.
54 see Kawai and Wignaraja, 2010.
55 For more details see Duval, 2011.
56 SAARC Secretariat. Available from http://www.saarcsec.org/areaofcooperation/detail.php?activity_id=47,
and http://www.saarc-sec.org/areaofcooperation/
detail.php?activity_id=42.
57 The CBTA was signed by Lao People’s Republic,
Thailand, and Viet Nam in 1999. Subsequently,
Cambodia (2001), China (2002) and Myanmar (2003)
acceded to the CBTA. For a recent critical view of
the degree of implementation of the CBTA, see e.g.
Greater Mekong Subregion Business Forum, “Articles of
Association of the Greater Mekong Subregion Freight
Transport Association (GMS – FRETA)”, November 2011.
58 See chapter three for more information on crossborder
and transit facilitation issues.
59 The members of these four agreements are the
following. AFTA: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet
Nam; ECOTA: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, the Islamic
Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan,
Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan;
PACER-Plus: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States
of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru,
New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa,
Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu; SAARC:
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives,
Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.