This study develops earlier OECD work on the treatment of agriculture in regional trade agreements for Latin America by extending the geographic coverage to Asia-Pacific and selected agreements in Africa. It covers over 50 regional trade agreements with respect to market access, subsidies, trade remedies, and requirements relating to sanitary & phytosanitary measures (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT). These are compared to the requirements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in order to assess whether they provide for greater market access. Most of the agreements studied show substantial progress with respect to tariff elimination in conformity with Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Agricultural export subsidies are banned in over half the agreements, signalling greater trade liberalisation. However, there is much less progress made in the areas of SPS and TBT.
