Malaysia, US to take contentious issues ’off the table’
Business Times (Malaysia)
Malaysia, US to take contentious issues ’off the table’
By Rupa Damodaran
February 9 2007
US-MALAYSIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT TALKS
MALAYSIA and the US have agreed to take contentious issues "off the table" in their ongoing (free trade agreement) FTA negotiations, International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz said.
"US Trade Representative Susan Schwab and I have agreed in principle that both sides list out what the snags are so that we can have discussions at the ministerial level," she said, after witnessing a signing ceremony between Qi Services (M) Sdn Bhd and ISS Consulting (M) Sdn Bhd in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Some of these areas, she said, can be further negotiated after today’s discussions without blocking the progress of the FTA talks.
"On areas like government procurement, New Economic Policy and our policies on restructuring, it is no go and they understand that.
"We are not about to give in to anyone’s demands, we have our own positions on sovereign rights and we have strong feelings about certain policies which are sacrosanct as far as the people are concerned," said Rafidah.
Rafidah said Susan called her twice on Wednesday to discuss the difficulties and bring to her attention some areas where there was a standstill.
"I’ve also told her not to treat the FTA with Malaysia in the same breath as the ones the US had concluded with Singapore, Peru or Colombia for obvious reasons and she understood that."
She said the Bumiputera policy is well understood by the Americans but they want to have preferences in the international tenders here while in the financial services, they are trying to negotiate for something extra.
Malaysia has also refused to negotiate on imports of rice and tobacco, she said.
The fifth round of negotiations, tucked away in the scenic Karambunai resort near Kota Kinabalu, will conclude today.
It will only be known today whether there will be another round of discussions although Rafidah, in response to questions, said discussions were not in the final leg and that she expected more to come.
The Malaysian delegation is led by Miti secretary-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Mamat while Assistant US Trade Representative for Asia Pacific Barbara Weisel is leading the US delegation.
The Americans are hoping for the discussions to be wrapped up by March for consideration of the US Congress, 90 days before the expiry of President George W. Bush’s fast-track Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).
The Karambunai discussions had included elimination of tariffs, equity conditions in education and telecommunications and distributive trade.
Rafidah said she was happy that there was progress in the ongoing talks, considering that they involved multi-pronged negotiations with 19 groups from various ministries and government agencies.
"Yesterday I was briefed that the domestic trade is moving forward in enhancing equity of foreigners in distributive trade while on the education (front), there has been progress as well."
Rafidah will be briefing ministries next Wednesday on whatwas happening in the FTA talks.
Rafidah said Malaysia made requests to the US in terms of market opening which would benefit the private sector.
