World economic unions
Economic blocs and the Commonwealth of Significant advances in the development of world trade in the second half of XX century have contributed to the emergence of new phenomena in the international organization. Among these phenomena include the so-called regionalism, ie agreement on the particularly close co-operation of individual countries on the type of free trade areas, customs unions. The number of such groups by the end of 90 years according to different estimates ranged from 80 to 100. According to the World Bank in these areas is carried out about half of world trade. Among the most famous sites: the European Free Trade Association, European Union, the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and other participants of the nine major international and regional trading blocs are presented below:
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