<p>What you're looking for is called "utilization rate" and I believe a government agency in most countries should have this information. Here's one example: <a href="https://english.bdi.eu/article/news/the-preference-utilization-rate-of-eu-free-trade-agreements/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://english.bdi.eu/article/news/the-preference-utilization-rate-of-eu-free-trade-agreements/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-13T10:51:33.473Z
2019-12-13T10:51:33.473Z
Art
<p>Is anyone aware of statistics about the total volume of trade that happens under regional trade agreements (RTAs)? It's easy to find figures for <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/regfac_e.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the number of agreements</a>, but not so easy for their cumulative impact.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-12T13:58:04.830Z
For which period are you looking for? For recent years you can compute them based on trade data and information on RTAs.
emeryville
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-12T14:02:39.583Z
@emeryville: I'm not sure it's that simple because RTAs are do not necessarily cover all commerce between countries. So even if I know X exports to Y $E in total, and I know X and Y are part of a RTA, the RTA may exclude (or specifically only include) certain products. I think agricultural products are commonly excluded in most RTAs, for example.
fantastic peace and prosperity
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-12T14:26:59.287Z
Nothing prevents you using disaggregated trade data
emeryville
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-24T17:55:02.157Z
@emeryville You might be surprised at how much international trade that would qualify to use an RTA, doesn't.  Also the complexity of mapping bilateral trade flows to 6- or 8-digit HS lines for each of the hundreds of RTAs in effect is... left as an exercise for the reader.
Dan
<international-trade>
Volume of trade covered by regional trade agreements
fantastic peace and prosperity
# Volume of trade covered by regional trade agreements

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-11-12)

Is anyone aware of statistics about the total volume of trade that happens under regional trade agreements (RTAs)? It's easy to find figures for [the number of agreements](https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/regfac_e.htm), but not so easy for their cumulative impact.

**Tags:** international-trade
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: For which period are you looking for? For recent years you can compute them based on trade data and information on RTAs.  
> **username_0**: @emeryville: I'm not sure it's that simple because RTAs are do not necessarily cover all commerce between countries. So even if I know X exports to Y $E in total, and I know X and Y are part of a RTA, the RTA may exclude (or specifically only include) certain products. I think agricultural products are commonly excluded in most RTAs, for example.  
> **username_1**: Nothing prevents you using disaggregated trade data  
> **username_2**: @emeryville You might be surprised at how much international trade that would qualify to use an RTA, doesn't.  Also the complexity of mapping bilateral trade flows to 6- or 8-digit HS lines for each of the hundreds of RTAs in effect is... left as an exercise for the reader.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2019-12-13. Score: 1

What you're looking for is called "utilization rate" and I believe a government agency in most countries should have this information. Here's one example: <https://english.bdi.eu/article/news/the-preference-utilization-rate-of-eu-free-trade-agreements/>


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