Introduction

For an increasing number of countries, it is difficult to resist the attraction of regional trading arrangements. It seems as if one of the first consequences of globalization is the regionalization of trading patterns. This is visible in both trade statistics and in formal regional trade agreements. Indeed, the patterns of trade and investment in the multilateral trading system have been regional for some time (Thomsen, 1994: 111122; Lawrence, 1996: 17-19). Countries tend to trade overwhelmingly - and ever more - with their neighbors. As Table 1 shows, this is by far and foremost the case for the industrialized countries (cf. Anderson and Blackhurst, 1993: 5 & Appendix; Anderson and Norheim, 1993: 19). More and more countries are concluding trade agreements with their same neighbors and investing in a deepening of such agreements; this trend contrasts with trade agreements concluded on a multilateral scale (Wallace, 1990; Thomsen, 1994). As a matter of fact, of the current 134 members of the World Trade Organization, only three are not parties to at least one regional trade agreement: Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea (see Table 1. 1).