AFTA Council meets on ending regional trade barriers

AFTA Council meets on ending regional trade barriers

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AFP): The ASEAN Free Trade Council
(AFTA) yesterday began considering a proposal to shorten its
basic plan for reducing regional trade barriers from 15 to 10
years, while expanding the list of exclusions.

Officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) -- Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the
Philippines and Brunei -- were joined in the half-day meeting in
this northern Thai city by observers from Japan and Vietnam.

The meeting, however, fell badly behind schedule, apparently
as a result of numerous "errors" in its agenda.

The AFTA gathering is a prelude to the annual ASEAN Economic
Ministers meeting here today and tomorrow. On Saturday, they meet
with the Japanese delegation on how to rebuild the economies of
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and Sunday they meet with officials
from Vietnam, which wants to join ASEAN.

The AFTA Council was to debate whether to shorten from 15 to
10 years the period under which member countries must reduce to
uniform rates the tariffs on most items they trade with each.

Under the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme
AFTA members signed in January 1992, the tariffs are to be
reduced to a maximum of between 0 and 5 percent by Jan. 1, 2008.
Excluded are agricultural goods and 14 items which individual
countries feel should still be protected.

The CEPT countdown began Jan. 1, 1993, and has two programs
for reducing tariffs, a "normal track" and a so-called "fast
track" program.

Most items are on the normal track, which calls for reducing
high tariffs to 20 percent within five to eight years and all
tariffs except those on the exclusion list to between zero and
five percent within the following seven years.

Shortening

But senior economic officials meeting here ahead of AFTA have
agreed to recommend that the total period be shortened to 10
years, officials said.

The "fast track" program would reduce tariffs greater than 20
percent to below five percent within 10 years, and tariffs
already less than 20 percent to below five percent within seven
years.

The senior officials have agreed to recommend that these
periods be cut to seven and five years, respectively.

The officials also agreed to weaken CEPT by allowing members
to put more items on the exclusion list, but did not say what
areas might be affected.

Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchapakdi, the head of the
Thai delegation, earlier told reporters in Bangkok that Thailand
would move in the opposite direction and ask to have
petrochemical products taken off the list of items excluded from
tariff reductions and put on the normal track.

But he predicted other AFTA members would object to this
because Thailand is strong in this field, and said Thai officials
then would seek to have some sub-sectors of the industry taken
off the list.