Free Trade Agreements
A free-trade area is a trade bloc whose member countries have signed a free-trade agreement (FTA), which eliminates tariffs, import quotas, and preferences on most (if not all) goods and services traded between them. If people are also free to move between the countries, in addition to FTA, it would also be considered an open border. It can be considered the second stage of economic integration. Countries choose this kind of economic integration if their economical structures are complementary. If their economical structures are competitive, it is likely there will be no incentive for a FTA, or only selected areas of goods and services will be covered to fulfill the economic interests between the two signatories of FTA.
Read more about Free Trade Agreements: Description, Lists of Free-trade Areas, Qualifying For A Free-trade Agreement
Famous quotes containing the words free, trade and/or agreements:
“That’s free enterprise, friends: freedom to gamble, freedom to lose. And the great thing—the truly democratic thing about it—is that you don’t even have to be a player to lose.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The most conservative man in the world is the British Trade Unionist when you want to change him.”
—Ernest Bevin (1881–1951)
“The Federal Constitution has stood the test of more than a hundred years in supplying the powers that have been needed to make the Central Government as strong as it ought to be, and with this movement toward uniform legislation and agreements between the States I do not see why the Constitution may not serve our people always.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)