REGIONAL COOPERATION AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

PART II:
economy that could cause serious damage upon allocation of resources in the importing
country. The introduced safeguard measures should comprise clear elements of gradual
reduction until complete elimination within a period of one year. The introduced measure
could be reused in two mandates, after which it could not be implemented in a two-year
period of time. Safeguard measures could also be introduced in the case of a serious
misbalance in the balance of payments of a member-state and should be implemented until
it is rebalanced again (Art. XXV, 2006:20).
CEFTA-2006 is managed by a Committee of member-states representatives, which is
managed by a Secretariat situated in Brussels. Eventual trade disputes among member
states should be resolved through an international arbitrage, as all member-states have not
become members of the WTO, yet.
2. CEFTA-2006 effects upon the trade exchange of goods among Western Balkan
countries
The creation of the CEFTA-2006 had a positive effect upon the total trade exchange of
goods of the Western Balkan countries. For only two years of the functioning of this
multilateral free trade agreement the trade exchange within the region recorded a significant
increment.
Country
Table 1.: Trade exchange of goods within CEFTA-2006
for the period 2007 and 2008* (in Euro)
2007 2007 2008* 2008*
export % import % export % import %
Albania 43389586 0,70 194950972 3,42 42854255 1,05 1160043198 2,71
Bosna and
Herzegovina
1086905061 17,59 2066295209 36,25 625147881 15,32 2253810899 52,63
Croatia 2004754382 32,44 949019634 16,65 1644464755 40,29 504079000 11,78
Macedonia 725147449 11,74 448737377 7,87 4673100143 11,45 256093839 5,98
Moldavia 6422056 0,10 5012522 0,09 6300404 0,15 3920032 0,09
Monte Negro 182935515 2,96 910917243 15,98 87806254 2,15 540538182 12,62
Serbia** 2080746592 33,68 1107250310 19,42 1207500771 29,59 607855818 14,19
Kosovo 489969489 0,79 18235770 0,32 - - - -
Total: 6179270129 100 5700419037 100 4081384463 100 4282340958 100
Source: The Mission of the Republic of Macedonia in Brussels, March 2009
*Note: Data for 2008 are accounted only for the first six months of the year
**Note: Data for Serbia include data for Monte Negro
Comparing the realized total trade exchange with the world, data for CEFTA-2006 trade
exchange of goods show the following:
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