 Should Bangladesh Join a Regional Free Trade Area?South Asia Economic Journal, 2005, vol. 6, issue 1, 79-97 Abstract: Suppose a regional preferential trading agreement (PTA) is to be formed and a particular country is invited to join. Should it do so? This question arises for Bangladesh in relation to a proposed PTA based upon the BIMST-EC country grouping of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand. This paper examines the case for Bangladesh joining such a PTA. It is concluded that the net gains from doing so would be very small. There are two reinforcing aspects to this point. The first is the relatively small levels of intra-regional trade between Bangladesh and the other BIMST-EC countries. Although these trade volumes would almost certainly increase under a PTA, they may not do so sufficiently to make the benefits economically significant. The second aspect is that the pattern of trade between Bangladesh and the other BIMST-EC countries suggests that they are not natural trading partners. The trade-creating effects that generate net benefits may be especially small. There may be other strong reasons for forming a PTA among these countries, resting mainly on political considerations, but significant trade-related gains should not be expected. Keywords: Bangladesh; BIMST-EC; PTA; Free Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:soueco:v:6:y:2005:i:1:p:79-97 DOI: 10.1177/139156140500600105 Access Statistics for this article More articles in South Asia Economic Journal from Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka |
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