Intra-Arab Trade - Is It Too Little? (Electronic book text)

Intra-Arab trade has been a relatively small portion of total Arab trade, both in absolute terms and relative to other regions. Various reasons have been offered to explain why intra-Arab trade is relatively small. Some of these are policy related and, in theory, could be overcome-such as the high level of tariffs (and other) trade impediments in some of the Arab countries as well as political disputes-while others are not easily reversible-such as the lack of product complementarity and the differences in per capita income-which may encourage greater trade with outside of the region.