The future of free trade agreements: a Singapore perspective

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential shortcomings of existing free trade agreements and the desired elements of future free trade agreements in response to some new global economic structure changes. We present our discussion based on the experience of Singapore. We highlight that future free trade agreements should be more comprehensive and try to address the following key challenges: eliminating non-tariff trade barriers and limit potential new restrictions on trade; lower the trade policy uncertainty; protect intellectual property in a international setting to encourage innovation; managing immigration and FDI policies in a coordinated way across countries; improve regional and global production integration given the nature of global production networks.

Common External Tariffs and Trade Efficiency: Lessons for Cross-listed Firms in the East African Community

“…Besides the common external tariffs imposed by regional trading blocs, various shortcomings of existing and emerging regional and subregional free trade agreements have causal relationships with some new economic structure changes in the contemporary globalization and regionalization discourse. These shortcomings concur with the paper [9] analysis of the perspective of the future of free trade agreements and their potential shortcomings from Singapore's experiences. The study recommends more comprehensive free trade agreements that can: eliminate non-tariff barriers and eliminate potential barriers; enhance intellectual property protection; manage trade and FDI policies and enhance regional and global trade integration in future.…”