对双边自由贸易协定的重新认识

在贸易保护主义重新抬头的今天,WTO多边贸易体制的某些局促性使得许多国家热衷于签订双边自由贸易协定（FTA）以促进本国对外贸易的发展。双边FTA具有时间短、见效快、易操作、约束力强等特点,在促进当事双方自由贸易、经济技术合作、宏观经济政策协调乃至政治关系发展等方面要比WTO多边贸易体制更直接有效。但是,双边FTA在实际的运用中并不一定能带来实实在在的好处,它在填补多边贸易的空缺作用方面存在着缺位的情况,并且在促进经济发展、增强发展中国家贸易话语权等方面的积极作用也只是在一定的条件下才能达到。

A New Understanding of the Bilateral Free Trade Agreement

In the resurgence of trade protectionism, many countries are keen to make bilateral free trade agreements to develop foreign trade due to some limitations of the WTO multilateral trading system. The bilateral FTA presents some advantages such as less time, quick effect, easy operation, and strong binding force. Thus the bilateral FTA is more direct and effective than WTO multilateral trading system in terms of free trade promotion, the economic and technical cooperation, the coordination of macroeconomic policies and even bilateral political relation development. However, the bilateral FTA does not necessarily bring about tangible benefits, and some positive roles only can be achieved in definite conditions.