FREE TRADE AND REGULATORY PROTECTIONISM: NECESSITY, RELEVANCE AND INSTRUMENTS OF REGULATORY LIBERALIZATION

Abstract

In spite of strong resistence, international trade becomes frier of any kind of barriers. Both by multilateral and regional and bilateral preferencial trade arrangements, tariffs as most direct barrier to free trade have been already eliminated on most products or considerably lowered there where they exist. Non-tariff barriers are, as a rule, directly in contrast to rules and principles of international trade and as such they are subject to continuous surveillance and elimination. In such situation, technical barriers, or tehnical regulations and standards as well as product conformity assessement remain a central barrier to international trade. Although tehnical regulations are about making market more efficient, they also create additional costs to international trade. However, contrary to other barriers to trade, their elimination is not possible in contemporary state of international political and economic relations. Thus, diminishing their negative impact is one of the greatest challenges in international trade. By free trade agreements with countries from the region, EU and Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina liberalised most of its international exchange in form of elimination or reduction of tarriffs and quantitative restrictions on most products. However, due to nonconformity of technical regulations as well as inadequate infrastructure in this field, in the first place with European requirements, BiH has not yet realised all potential deriving form free trade.