ABSTRACT
Regionalism as an economic policy choice of governments was prone to periods of fashion throughout the twentieth century.1 The last decade of the century undoubtedly marked one of its more popular phases with fully 90 per cent of the countries which are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) also belonging to at least one regional trading arrangement. This latest rise in the popularity of regionalism has been widespread, and has been evident in countries at different levels of economic development and with varying levels of previous involvement with regional economic integration schemes.
