ITC Working Paper Series

ITC Working papers represent research in progress and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. The opinions expressed in the papers listed below are those of its authors and do not necessarily represent those of ITC, UN or WTO.

Closing in on harmonizing Rules of Origin for AfCFTA anatomy of reconciliations and remaining challenges

Closing in on harmonizing Rules of Origin for AfCFTA anatomy of reconciliations and remaining challenges

To become operational, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) must harmonize Rules Of Origin (ROO) across Africa’s Preferential Trade Agreements, usually defined at the level of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). Negotiators have agreed on a set of common Regime-Wide (RWRs) rules and on about 82% of the expected different Product-Specific Rules (PSRs). This paper documents the starting point for the negotiations, then contrasts the characteristics of RWRs and PSRs with the initial starting point using three measures: Textual overlap, regulatory distance, and an index of restrictiveness (R-Index). For RWRs those for AfCFTA are, overall, more transparent and more flexible.

Mapping and comparing Rules of Origin across Regional Trade Agreements with ITCs Rules of Origin Facilitator

Mapping and comparing Rules of Origin across Regional Trade Agreements with ITCs Rules of Origin Facilitator

An explosion of different Rules of Origin (ROO) has accompanied the spread of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) around the world. Often tailor-made, these ROO are there to prevent trade deflection and transshipment. The paper presents the Rule of Origin Facilitator (ROF) database developed at the International Trade Centre (ITC). Currently, the ROF contains all the texts describing ROO for 370 Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). These PTAs have 30 distinct Regime-wide (RW) rules and over 50,000 distinct Product Specific Rules (PSRs). This paper introduces observation-based metrics to examine the extent of differences across products within a PTA and between PTAs, a first step prior to harmonization.