March 2003. Note: The Lao People’s Democratic Republic has up to the present not issued customs notification on tariff concessions granted under the Bangkok Agreement. Some members, however, extend their concessions to that country. Potential trade A comparison of the 2001 intra-Bangkok Agreement trade figures in table 3, which include China as a member (China acceded to the Agreement in that year), with the figures in the last column of table 1 shows that China’s entry substantially increases the proportion of trade of member countries flowing within the Bangkok Agreement. It may be seen that China’s presence in the Agreement is of particular importance for the Republic of Korea, whose trade with China is substantially higher than with any other member. … and results in a significant increase in the proportion of trade flowing between members Table 3. Bangkok Agreement: intra-member trade (including China), 2001, as a percentage of the total Exports Imports Bangladesh 1.4 26.4 China 5.9 10.3 India 9.2 6.7 Lao People’s Democratic Republic 1.8 9.9 Republic of Korea 13.7 10.3 Sri Lanka 2.4 20.2 All Bangkok Agreement countries 8.7 10.4 Source: IMF, Direction of Trade Statistics (CD-ROM), various editions (Washington, International Monetary Fund, 2002-2003). In addition, it is worth exploring how the exports of the original member countries to China changed from 2001 to 2002, the latter being the first year of implementation of China’s concessions under the Agreement. As will be seen in table 4, all original members’ exports to China increased between 2001 and 2002. Without access to data at the tariff-line level, it is not possible to ascertain the extent to which this increase in exports is due to the Bangkok Agreement.7 It is also rather early to evaluate the full impact of China’s accession. Nevertheless, the rise in trade should be seen as a positive development for the Agreement, and seems consistent with the optimistic estimations of Ratnayake (2002) on the possible impact of China’s entry into the Bangkok Agreement.8 Table 4. Bangkok Agreement: percentage increase in exports to China, 2001-2002 Increase in exports (percentage) Bangladesh 120.0 India 29.4 Lao People’s Democratic Republic 29.4 Republic of Korea 30.6 Sri Lanka 107.5 Five original members 30.5
