Study On Legal Issues For Regional Trade Agreements

Regional integration of the world economic is one of the two irresistible historical tides, which is not contradictory with and seeks common development with the other—economic globalization. Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are a major feature of today's economic globalization. The number of preferential agreements as well as the world share of preferential trade has been steadily increasing over the last ten years. Sluggish progress in multilateral trade negotiations under the Doha Development Round appears to have accelerated further the rush to forge RTAs. RTA activities have intensified across all world regions particularly in the Western Hemisphere and Asia-PacificThis article consists of four parts. The first part is a general study on regional integration of the world economic, which elaborates on the connotation of regional integration of the world economic, reasons and its types; its development and present new features, which are analyzed accordingly, and the main characteristics and trend of regional trade agreements. the second part of the article tells North American Free Trade Agreement,Association of Southeast Asian Nations and European Communities and analyzes the three regional trade agreements' differences. The three part of the article is the status quo and deficiencies of china's participation in regional trade agreements. China participated in RTAs late. Nevertheless, China has made phased progress in RTAs through making great efforts. However, there are some deficiencies in participation in RTAs. Thus, China should take proper strategies and countermeasures in order to answer to the development of RTAs and participate in RTAs. The last part of the article is the strategies and countermeasures of china's answer to the development of the regional trade agreements.