Asean FTA talks with partners not as expected
Business Times, Malaysia
Asean FTA talks with partners not as expected
29 June 2007
MITI 2006 ANNUAL REPORT
The results of negotiations for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between Asean and India, Japan, Australia and New Zealand have not been as expected and areas are still there where consensus have yet to reached.
The negotiations with India have been hampered by differences on the scope and modality of the FTAs that is, the number of tariff lines for exclusions, depth of tariff cuts, timelines and treatment of selective sensitive products, said the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) Report 2006 released today.
Nevertheless, all parties have reaffirmed their commitments to conclude the FTAs, if possible by the end of 2007, the report published by MITI said.
Reporting the progress on some of the negotiations, it said the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations, which begun in April 2005, were ongoing amd expected to be concluded by the end of this year.
As for South Korea, it said due to significant amount of technical work involved, the target date for completion of negotiations in services and investment have been extended to November this year.
Negotiations with Australia and New Zealand meanwhile have reached substantial agreement by both parties on most of the product specific rules, it said.
MITI said that while there have been proposals for establishing a wider free trade area, covering Asean, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, Asean’s priority is to see to the completion of the Asean plus one FTAs before a wider regional FTA can be considered.
On Asean’s trade position, it said the region’s total trade rose nine per cent to US$1,341.5 billion last year, with intra-Asean trade increasing 9.2 per cent to US$336 billion.
The report said Malaysia’s exports under the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) Scheme in 2006 increased by 28.1 per cent to RM14.2 billion compared with RM11.1 billion in 2005. - Bernama
