IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/soueco/v2y2001i2p281-312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regional Trading Arrangements among SAARC Countries and India's Imports?â€

Author

Listed:
  • Swapan K. Bhattacharya

    (International Trade, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi)

Abstract

In spite of political skirmishes between two major members of SAARC, economic cooperation among the member states has been under way since the conclusion of the South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement on 2-4 May 1995 at the 8th SAARC Summit in Delhi. So far, SAARC member countries have concluded three rounds of preferential trading arrangements under the auspices of SAPTA. The basic object of this article is to examine whether SAPTA is successful in increasing India's intra-regional trade. With the help of the gravity model, it shows that the increase in India's imports from the member countries is miniscule, even though India has offered concessions for the largest number of items among all SAARC countries. This study examines the hollowness of SAPTA and suggests suitable measures to make SAPTA more effective. It strongly recommends duty-free trade among the SAARC members under the auspices of SAFTA at an early date.

Suggested Citation

  • Swapan K. Bhattacharya, 2001. "Regional Trading Arrangements among SAARC Countries and India's Imports?â€," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 2(2), pages 281-312, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:soueco:v:2:y:2001:i:2:p:281-312
    DOI: 10.1177/139156140100200205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/139156140100200205
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/139156140100200205?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1985. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade: Some Microeconomic Foundations and Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 474-481, August.
    2. Baldwin, Richard, 1993. "A Domino Theory of Regionalism," CEPR Discussion Papers 857, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1997. "Regional Trading Blocs in the World Economic System," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 72, April.
    4. Panagariya, Arvind, 1993. "Should East Asia go regional? No, no and maybe," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1209, The World Bank.
    5. Erzan, Refik & Yeats, Alexander, 1992. "Free trade agreements with the United States : what's in it for Latin America?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 827, The World Bank.
    6. Safadi, Raed & Yeats, Alexander, 1993. "The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) : its effect on South Asia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1119, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Biswa N Bhattacharyay & Swapan K. Bhattacharya, 2010. "Free Trade Agreement between People’s Republic of China and India: Likely Impact and Its Implications to Asian Economic Community," Working Papers id:3272, eSocialSciences.
    2. Bhattacharya, Swapan K. & Bhattacharyay, Biswa N., 2007. "An empirical analysis on prospects and challenges of BIMSTEC-Japan trade integration," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 509-536, June.
    3. Rahul Sen & Sadhana Srivastava & Don Webber, 2015. "Preferential trading agreements and the gravity model in presence of zero and missing trade flows: Early results for China and India," Working Papers 2015-02, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    4. Rahul Sen & Sadhana Srivastava & Don J Webber, 2015. "Effects of preferential trade agreements in the presence of zero trade flows: the cases of China and India," Working Papers 20151507, Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol.
    5. Jong‐Wha Lee & Innwon Park & Kwanho Shin, 2008. "Proliferating Regional Trade Arrangements: Why and Whither?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(12), pages 1525-1557, December.
    6. Florian Mölders & Ulrich Volz, 2011. "Trade creation and the status of FTAs: empirical evidence from East Asia," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 147(3), pages 429-456, September.
    7. Nilanjan Banik & John Gilbert, 2010. "Regional Integration and Trade Costs in South Asia," Chapters, in: Douglas H. Brooks & Susan F. Stone (ed.), Trade Facilitation and Regional Cooperation in Asia, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Festus Ebo Turkson, 2012. "Trade Agreements and Bilateral Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa: Estimating the Trade Effects of the EU-ACP PTA and RTAs," Discussion Papers 12/07, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    9. Guglielmo Caporale & Christophe Rault & Robert Sova & Anamaria Sova, 2009. "On the bilateral trade effects of free trade agreements between the EU-15 and the CEEC-4 countries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(3), pages 573-573, October.
    10. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2014. "Gravity Equations: Workhorse,Toolkit, and Cookbook," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 131-195, Elsevier.
    11. Bahar, Dany & Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar A., 2014. "Neighbors and the evolution of the comparative advantage of nations: Evidence of international knowledge diffusion?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 111-123.
    12. Salvador Gil & Rafael Llorca & J. Antonio Martínez‐Serrano, 2008. "Assessing the Enlargement and Deepening of the European Union," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(9), pages 1253-1272, September.
    13. Clougherty, Joseph A. & Grajek, Michał, 2014. "International standards and international trade: Empirical evidence from ISO 9000 diffusion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 70-82.
    14. James Harrigan, 2001. "Specialization and the Volume of Trade: Do the Data Obey the Laws?," NBER Working Papers 8675, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Jérôme Trotignon, 2009. "L'intégration régionale favorise-t-elle la multilatéralisation des échanges ?," Post-Print halshs-00335633, HAL.
    16. Haq, Zahoor Ul & Meilke, Karl D. & Cranfield, John A.L., 2011. "The Gravity Model and the Problem of Zero's in Agrifood Trade," Working Papers 116851, Canadian Agricultural Trade Policy Research Network.
    17. Kareem, Fatima Olanike & Martinez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada & Brümmer, Bernhard, 2016. "Fitting the Gravity Model when Zero Trade Flows are Frequent: a Comparison of Estimation Techniques using Africa's Trade Data," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 230588, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    18. Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2016. "Terms of trade and global efficiency effects of free trade agreements, 1990–2002," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 279-298.
    19. Raúl Serrano & Vicente Pinilla, 2014. "New directions of trade for the agri-food industry: a disaggregated approach for different income countries, 1963–2000," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-22, December.
    20. Felix Groba, 2014. "Determinants of trade with solar energy technology components: evidence on the porter hypothesis?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(5), pages 503-526, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:soueco:v:2:y:2001:i:2:p:281-312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ips.lk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.