PICTA PACER Project

Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA) et Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER).

The PICTA PACER project (2012-2015), which is funded by the French Minister for Overseas Territories’ Pacific Fund (Fonds Pacifique), has brought together a number of researchers from the team. It has given rise to a work published on the subject by the Presses Universitaires de la Nouvelle-Calédonie.

Context
The problematic developed is to determine whether regional integration of the French Pacific territories (French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna) is a desirable option. These territories all share the fact that they are situated remotely from metropolitan France and that they benefit from its financial transfers. As such, they are privileged within the Pacific region in terms of development, to such an extent that their economies are often considered artificial. Moreover, their situations are very similar when it comes to cost of living and extra expenditure, whose mechanics and phenomena of margins are very precisely described. Nevertheless, they are not equal in terms of either the resources they have or their institutional autonomies, especially given the impending liberation of New Caledonia, which is unique among them and could lead to the independence it has been seeking since the Nouméa Accord. All these factors form the fundamental evaluative context of the issue of regional integration in terms of costs and benefits. The role and impact of the PICTA (Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement) and PACER (Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations) regional free trade agreements are evaluated. They call into question the very economic foundations of the French territories.

Objectives
The project revisits the standard international trade theories, which have limited applicability in the particularities of the French territories, with their purchasing powers so dependent on drip feeds from metropolitan France and on an artificial FCFP/Euro parity that has no connection with their economic weight. It attempts to analyse the consequences of regional free trade both for unemployment and for competitiveness with their much larger Oceanian neighbours, Australia and New Zealand.

From 2012 to 2015.