Next in the series of prognostications for 2009: look for companies to expand the benefit of low-cost country sourcing by leveraging the duty savings from preferential trade agreements. NAFTA was signed into law in 1993, and in the past decade the number of trade agreements has multiplied many times over. The World Trade Organization tracks this trend and has this nifty chart on the the number of trade agreements in force and also tracks the degree of change (see the solid lines) associated with "notifications" related to regional trade agreements