Being part of a regional trade agreement proves to have a significant and important positive impact on trade. This can reflect the fact that being part of a trade agreement does not only imply the benefit of preferential tariffs but also of other economic gains (i.e. FTAs can promote economic cooperation by offering a political forum of discussion) (Martin et al., Together with the results for common border and language, this points to the importance of stronger regional integration for boosting agricultural exports. Contrary to expectations, the effect of the NTMRI term is found to be positive and significant.