The research topic will be on Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the key objective of this assignment is to understand the background, impacts and benefits of FTA from a Singapore’s perspective.
Free Trade Area
ASEAN free trade area is a trade bloc agreement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations supporting local manufacturing in all ASEAN countries. ASEAN consists of 10 countries; India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia and Myanmar. Free trade zone is able to eliminate tariffs, import charges and most goods and services traded between them. India is one of them and it is often called the free ports.
Free ports are typically one of the largest zones, holding all types of activities like tourism, sales, on-site residence. It has slight difference from the FTZs as they are not seen as export drivers but areas promoting overall economic growth linking the zones with the overall economy of the nation. Adding on, this enable greater expansion and liberalization of the core set of policies present in most free zone programs. (knowyourcountry, 2012)
Free trade produces winners and losers – not all countries would benefit at the same time from trade, especially those countries with poor competitiveness. If a country believes that it is not benefitting fairly from participating in free international trade, it is more likely to want to introduce some form of import control or protectionist measure.
Free Trade Agreements
The primary interest in having the free trade agreements is to secure trade liberalization. An advantage in having free trade agreements is that FTAs are quicker and easier to negotiate than multilateral agreements because there were fewer parties. These parties can secure advantages that are harder to win in bigger forums. Also, there are disadvantages too. If the free trade agreement is not set up right in the policies, they can diminish rather than enhance economic welfare.