Les effets de l’intégration régionale sur le processus de convergence réelle : étude comparative

This article proposes an analysis compared by the implications of the policies of regional integration about the convergence or the divergence of developing countries with regard to countries reference of each zone, in East Asia on the one hand and in the Mediterranean area on the other hand. The concept of globalization is already specifi ed, however, we can notice that countries consider the globalization in a different way according to their geographical area and especially their culture. Indeed, Asian countries conceive the globalization only on multilateral way, that is why until very recently, no country of East Asia took part into preferential agreements. Multilateralism way chosen by the Asian countries did not have negative effects about the development of an intra-zone trade, favourable to a dynamics of convergence of incomes. By contrast (on an opposite way) Mediterranean countries, in the lineage of the European Union, have controlled their commercial / trade policies with the participation in several preferential agreements. The most remarkable among of all agreements is the protocol of Barcelona, which must lead to the creation of one free trade area by 2010 between the European Union and 12 countries of the Mediterranean area. We can see that in spite of an institutionalization of the commercial links between Mediterranean countries, the business intra zone remains weak or strongly dependent on a single partner: the European Union. While in East Asia we can observe a dynamics of real convergence which develops, in the Mediterranean area, the correction is more and more puffing.