Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A free trade area is the region encompassing a trade bloc whose member countries have signed a free trade agreement (FTA). Such agreements involve cooperation between at least two countries to reduce trade barriers, import quotas and tariffs, and to increase trade of goods and services with each other.
Free trade areas between groups of countries, such as the European Economic Area and the Mercosur open markets, establish a free trade zone among members while creating a protectionist barrier between that free trade area and the rest of the world.
Free-trade zones can also be defined as labor-intensive manufacturing centers that involve the import of raw materials or components and the export of factory products, but this is a dated definition as more and more free-trade zones focus on service industries such as software, back-office operations, research, and financial services.
1937 poster celebrating the United States' first foreign trade zone, Staten Island In the United States, a foreign-trade zone (FTZ) is a geographical area, in (or adjacent to) a United States Port of Entry, where commercial merchandise, both domestic and foreign, receives the same Customs treatment it would if it were outside the commerce of the United States.
The OED records the use of the phrase "free trade agreement" with reference to the Australian colonies as early as 1877. [9] After the WTO's World Trade Organization - which has been considered by some as a failure for not promoting trade talks, but a success by others for preventing trade wars - states increasingly started exploring options to conclude FTAs.
Terms include free port (porto Franco), free zone (zona franca), bonded area (US: foreign-trade zone), free economic zone, free-trade zone, export processing zone and maquiladora. Most commonly a free port is a special customs area or small customs territory with generally less strict customs regulations (or no customs duties or controls for ...
Although in the 1990s many documents regulating the functioning of the free trade area were adopted, including rules of origin and re-export rules, [20] and in the 2000s the Council of Heads of State aimed to finalise all procedures and fully launch the free trade area, [21] [22] the multilateral free trade regime was not actually fully formed ...
The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) was created in 1960 by the outer seven (as a looser alternative to the then-European Communities) but most of its membership has since joined the Communities/EU leaving only four countries (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) still party to the treaty.