ASEM in March 1996, the sixteen leaders of the European Union met the ten leaders of East Asia in Bangkok. At this historic ASEM summit, the leaders from the two continents agreed to begin a comprehensive engagement with each other to build a new Euro-Asia House. 
 

British Commonwealth
for many years, members of former British colonies, a 54 nation club of English speaking countries with strong links to Britain have given tariff preferences to one another. Members of the club usually hold a biennial meeting on trade issue called CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting).

Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meet (CHOGM) which opens here tomorrow, a bit of an anachronism -- a gathering of 54 countries --Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is held every two years to discuss world political, economic and social issues.

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 diverse, independent states, consulting through a largely informal network of governmental and non-governmental links.

Today, while half the members are small states with populations under one million people, member states represent nearly one quarter of the world's population and one third of the membership of the United Nations.

Commonwealth of Independent States "CIS" of 9 full members of (former Soviet Union republics -- also called the Russian Commonwealth.

On 21 December 1991, the leaders of eight additional former Soviet Republics – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – signed the Alma-Ata Protocol expanding the CIS to these states, thus bringing the number of participating countries to 11. Georgia joined two years later, in December 1993. At this point, 12 former Soviet Republics (all except the Baltic States) participated in the CIS.

COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (an economic alliance of southern and eastern African countries), exists as an organization of free independent sovereign states which have agreed to cooperate in developing their natural and human resources for the good of all their people. With its 21 member states and population of 385 millions, it forms a major integrated trading block.

 

Page 9/11 - France, once required Japanese video players be cleared through a tiny Customs office with horrendous delays. 

Page 10/11 APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation - This huge regional trade group from 21 nations accounts for more than half of the world's economic output and 42% of its population.

Page 11/11 The ASEAN Economic Community represents a huge market with a combined population of one 600 million people.

G15 Group established in during the non-aligned movement summit in Belgrade in 1989. The G-15, a forum which promotes South-South co-operation, initially comprised a group of 15 countries but has now include more nations.

Current members are: Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

G7 Economic power group - now know as G8 after including Russia. This elite group of 8 with an annual summit ministers meeting.

G8 stands for Group of Eight and is made up of leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the United States of America.
 

G-77 a 133 members grouping was established on 15 June 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries, signatories of the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries," issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

The G-77 group has become the largest Third World coalition in the United Nations -- provides the means for the developing world to articulate and promote its collective economic interests and enhance its joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues in the United Nations system, and promote economic and technical cooperation among developing countries (ECDC/TCDC)
 

D8 The group of Developing eight countries Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, and Nigeria established on 1998 with annual "heads of state" summit. Its members are also in the "Organization of Islamic conference". Unlike many other third world grouping, the D8 focuses on initiating projects to be implemented by private sector.

IOR-ARC (Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation) consisting of "Seven countries" originally. The 19 members in the regional grouping is based on geographical location of more than 2 billion inhabitants, which is considered a huge trade market.

IOR-ARC was established in Mauritius in March 1995 at the inaugural meeting held in Delhi in December 1995 and among its objectives is to promote sustainable growth and development of its member countries and accelerating trade within the Indian Ocean region. 

IOR-ARC membership includes Australia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Oman, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Pakistan and Yemen. 
 

MERCOSUR a tariff union. Mercosur or Mercosul is a sub-regional bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. Its associate countries are Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador.

South America's largest trade block covering a market of 575 million people, comprises: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, as well as associated members Bolivia and Chile.

MERCOSUR was created by the Treaty of Asunción signed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay on March 26, 1991. Chile and Bolivia became associate members in 1996 and 1997 respectively. With a population of 220 million and a GDP of US$ 1.3 trillion in 1997,

MERCOSUR is the fastest growing trading bloc in the world. It experienced a trade growth of 400% in the period 1990-97. More information at http://www.mercosur.org/english/

Mercosur Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay in 1995 united to form Mercosur, a customs union bringing together 200 million people with a combined annual gross domestic product (GDP) of more than US$900 billion that has a lot of Mercosur research data, and useful for anyone who wants to establish trading relationships in these countries.
 

South Coordinating Commission "SCC" proposed to be established on Jan 1st. 2001SCC Conceived as a permanent body that will coordinate developing countries position with regards to world trade and financial issues.

SCC will replace the existing "South Center" in Geneva, Switzerland -- which will be endorsed by the 133 members of G-77 Millennium Summit in New York on September 2000.

Once endorsed by the G-77 leaders, the "South" is expected to have a more coordinated stand on issues, especially those which required negotiations with the "North".

The setting up of SCC was mooted at the G-77 summit in Havana in April 2000. The G-77 leaders were concerned about how divided developing countries had been in several crucial issues concerning international trade and finance.

Commonwealth of Australia - Six Australian colonies joined to form the commonwealth of Australia. Officially the Commonwealth of Australia is an Oceania country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area with a population of 23.6 million

Next page 8/11 - About exchange control and 'import quotas' together with 'tariffs' are the main form of protectionism..."
 

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