Regional FTA Activity 2017

What This Shows

This heatmap visualises how frequently countries in different world regions have signed preferential trade agreements (PTAs) with each other since 2017. Each cell shows the number of country-pair relationships covered by new agreements between two regions. Darker cells indicate more active integration. The data draws on DESTA v2.03, covering base treaties and accessions signed between 2017 and 2025, with withdrawals entering into force after 2017 removed.

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2025

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Methodological Notes

Unit of measurement: Country-pairs, not unique agreements. One plurilateral agreement with 40 members generates many rows. Africa’s high count is primarily driven by AfCFTA; Intercontinental counts reflect EU agreement membership.
Year column used: Year of signature, not year of entry into force. This captures political intent. Some signed agreements may not yet be in force.
Entry types included: Base treaties and accessions only. Consolidated entries excluded to avoid double-counting.
Withdrawals: Country-pairs removed where a withdrawal entered into force after 2017 (1 row affected; 1,179 other withdrawals pre-date the 2017 filter and were not in the dataset).
Region assignments: DESTA’s continent classification used as primary source. 46 countries appearing only in intercontinental agreements were manually assigned to regions based on trade bloc conventions.

Data source: Dür, Andreas, Leonardo Baccini and Manfred Elsig (2014). “The Design of International Trade Agreements: Introducing a New Database.” The Review of International Organizations, 9(3): 353–375. DESTA Database v2.03 (September 2025). Available at: designoftradeagreements.org

Regional FTA Activity, 2017–2025

What This Shows

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Methodological Notes