Downside of Iran’s PTAs

When it comes to policymaking, preferential trade agreements are classified into traditional and advanced, such that the former covers few policy areas and focuses on tariff reduction, while the number of policy areas covered by advanced PTAs has increased significantly in the past two decades. 
Until the late 1990s, when the number of such agreements began to rise, most new agreements covered fewer than 10 policy areas. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the new agreements covered between 10 and 20 policy areas while PTAs struck between the US and the European Union cover more than 52 policy areas. 
In the general classification of the new generation of trade agreements, those with 10 and 20 areas envision regulatory issues related to trade, such as subsidies or technical barriers in the way of trade. When the number of policy areas in the agreement exceeds 20, they often include fields that are not directly related to business and cover issues such as labor, scientific and work migrations, and the environment. 
Amin Maleki and Maryam Khalili-Asl, members of the Institute for Trade Studies and Research, prefaced their write-up for the Persian daily Etemad with this note. A translation of the text follows: