ASEAN stops new intra-reg’l FTAs
Manila Bulletin | 21 August 2007
ASEAN stops new intra-reg’l FTAs
By BERNIE CAHILES-MAGKILAT
ASEAN countries have agreed to a moratorium on forging intra-regional free trade agreements saying they would have to focus first on the completion of FTA negotiations with China, Japan, Korea, and the Australia-New Zealand.
This was revealed by Ramon Vicente Kabigting, director of the Bureau of International Trade Relations (BITR), as ASEAN economic ministers meet this week in Manila.
Kabigting said the ASEAN Economic Integration Task Force had met recently and agreed to finish first a number of FTA negotiations before they could move on to other intra-regional FTA proposals.
"This is very much the same with what the ministers were saying during a meeting of the ASEAN 10 plus 6 other partners in Kuala Lumpur, " he said. Other proposed intra-regional FTAs with ASEAN include that with the EU, India, US, among others.
"The ministers, however, agreed to proceed with the evaluation of these other proposed FTAs but whatever is the result of the study would have to wait until the FTAs with four partner countries in Asia have been completed," Kabigting added.
Of the four FTA negotiations, Kabigting said the ASEAN-China is the most advanced.
"The ASEAN-China is almost finished except on trade and investments. It is well on its way," he said.
The ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership has also a great chance of finishing soon because bilateral negotiations are falling into place, Kabigting said.
On the ASEAN-Korea, both parties, have attempted to finish the trade in services agreement.
On the ASEAN-Australia and New Zealand proposed FTA, Kabigting said that ASEAN has sent some questions on modalities to see if how close are they in forging a deal.
"The target is to finish as soon as possible," Kabigting said.
It could be noted that the ASEAN-China and ASEAN Korea are staged FTAs while ASEAN Japan and ASEAN- Australia/New Zealand are single undertakings.
Kabigting said that China has already opened to the Philippines its transport and auxiliary services, trading business and warehousing.
Already Philippine companies can move into the property management and development services in China as they are moving to develop the hinterlands.
"China is more advanced because the only remaining contentious issue is the investment leg of the agreement but everybody is going for this year as the general target for completion," he said.
"We hope to finalize the investment, service and economic chapter in the ASEAN-Japan proposed CEP because the text there is agreeable to both parties and there is no hostilities and conditions look bearable to each other," Kabigting said.
Except for two ASEAN countries, all parties have already exchanged their final request lists on trade in goods for tariff liberalization purposes.
But Kabigting said the two countries’ inability to fulfill their mandate on the submission of their request list for tariff cuts are merely a matter of internal bureaucratic incapacity.
