Global Economic Prospects 2005: Trade, Regionalism and Development

The World Bank’s annual Report—Global Economic Prospects 2005: Trade, Regionalism and Development 2005, was launched on November 16, 2004. While the multilateral WTO talks remain mired in contentious debate, new bilateral and regional preferential trading arrangements are mushrooming all over the globe. The surge in regional trading arrangements prompts many questions that the Global Economic Prospects 2005 takes up:

what type of regional and bilateral arrangements are most beneficial -- and which types stifle development?
are these agreements inspire deeper integration that multilateral trade agreements cannot?
do they contribute to -- or detract from -- incentives for countries to engage in the multilateral Doha trade talks?