NORTH AMERICAN FREE

TRADE AGGREMENT
NAFTA
AN INTRODUCTION

 Establishment - Formation1 January 1994

 Membership - Canada, Mexico, United States

 Secretariats - Mexico City, Ottawa and Washington

 Official languages - English, French and Spanish

 TheNorth American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA ) is a trilateral trade bloc in North
America created by the governments of the
United States, Canada, and Mexico.
 Objectives

 To eliminate barriers to trade between the territories

parties
 To enhance the competitive advantage

 To reduce the prices of the products and services by

enhancing the competition
 To create new business opportunities
 Measures

 Opening up of government procurement markets in

each member country of NAFTA
 Residents of NAFTA countries can invest in any
other NAFTA countries freely
 Protection of intellectual property rights of the
NAFTA member countries
 Free flow of employees and business from one
member country to another
EFFECTS OF NAFTA
BENEFITS
 200% increase in trade among the 3 countries.

 Increase market access within each country.

 Benefit’s the importers by reduced or duty free goods.

 Can make the exporter more competitive then other non-

participating countries
Critical appraisal
 Most of the US industries will shift to Mexico as
Mexico has less stringent environmental protection
and health and safety legislations than USA
 Proponents of NAFTA say that it increases jobs in
the US, but opponents of NAFTA say that it
decreases jobs in the US, because it is easier to
export factories to Mexico where the cost of labor
is very low
CONCLUSION
 NAFTA is one of the most successful
treaties of the times in terms of growth in
trade i.e. imports & exports , G.D.P e.t.c
 The emergence of NAFTA helps all the
three member countries in the Area of
industrial development, increase in
employment opportunities, income and
living standards of the people