FTA is an agreement between the countries or regional blocks to reduce or eliminate trade barriers, though mutual negotiations with a view to enhancing trade. It can however be comprehensive to include goods, services, investment, intellectual property,competition, government procurement and other areas. On goods, the key areas covered are customs duties or tariffs, rules of origins, non-tariff measures such as technical barriers to trade(TBT), sanitary phytosanitary (SPS) measures, trade remedies etc. On services, the negotiations are on barriers to various modes of supply including domestic regulations. The WTO uses the nomenclature of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) to describe FTAs.
Trade agreements could be bilateral, plurilateral or multilateral. Bilateral trade agreements occur when two countries agree to unshackle trade restrictions to expand business opportunities. Plurilateral agreements occur between a large number of countries, either in the regional context or otherwise. Multilateral trade agreements is generally referred to for WTO negotiations since it covers a large number of countries and sets global trade rules. As per WTO statistics, there were 349 trade agreements in force, as on 15 June, 2021. However, there were notifications of 565 trade agreements. Every WTO Member has atleast one trade agreement.
