Abstract:
Over the past few years, there has been a pronounced acceleration in the trend towards economic integration in different regions of the world. The completion of the single European Market, the introduction of the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement and its subsequent expansion into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the projected completion of fhe Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) free trade region (AFTA) by the year 2003, and the declaration of the objective by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to accomplish free trade and investment in the Asia and Pacific region by the year 2020 provide recent examples of this trend.
