The RTA Exchange is jointly implemented by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). We are a non-profit, non-partisan initiative that brings together the collective international knowledge on regional trade agreements (RTAs) and facilitates dialogue on RTA-related policy issues.

The RTA Exchange was created in the context of the ICTSD’s E15 Initiative examining the challenges and opportunities associated with the proliferation and consolidation of regional trade agreements for the global trade and investment system. RTAs act as valuable laboratories for new trade rules, and as testing grounds for approaches and provisions suitable to be harvested at the multilateral level. The RTA Exchange was developed to share these best practices and promote purposeful, multi-stakeholder dialogues and policy-oriented research. This process is intended to arrive at options for improved coherence among RTAs, and between RTAs and the multilateral trading system, in order to contribute to a more inclusive global trade and investment system that delivers sustainable development for all.

Our main focus is on:

• Collecting RTA-related information and analysis from leading experts and organizations around the globe, and disseminating this material on our website (run by the IDB’s Integration and Trade Sector)
• Organizing policy dialogues on key priority areas in trade policy
• Generating and disseminating original, policy-oriented research and analysis