Jagdish Bhagwati strongly opposes this opinion, describing the entanglement of hundreds of FTAs with various rules, tariffs and institutional arrangements as a “spaghetti bowl”.
Japanese Researchers from Keio University, observed 132 countries and established that, even though trade volumes were positively correlated with FTAs, this effect was characterized by diminishing returns.
[5] In this way, the increasingly heavy and costly administrative burden caused by the multiplication of FTAs would deter firms to use FTA's preferential tariffs, thus proving a Spaghetti Bowl Effect.
Important hubs, such as the People's Republic of China, Japan and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) emerged.
As a result, both firms and governments, started to worry about the burden imposed by the Asian trade environment's growing complication.