AFTA on auto sector moving slowly
Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Little progress has been made to accelerate the liberalization of the automotive sector through the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), with member countries still involved in protracted negotiations, an official says.
"There have been no concrete developments so far, as each country has its own interests," Ministry of Industry director general for transportation Budhi Darmadhi said last week.
ASEAN leaders agreed late last year to accelerate tariff reductions in 11 priority sectors, including the automotive industry, by 2007 in a move to boost regional trade. The 10 other sectors are agriculture, electronics, fisheries, rubber, textiles, timber, air travel, e-commerce, health care and tourism.
The acceleration it is hoped would boost trade between ASEAN countries from 23 percent of the region's total trade in 2003 to 27 percent by the end of 2005.
Less than two years into the schedule however, no significant progress on the automotive industry has been made. Differences remain among member nations about tariff and non-tariff issues, including regulations about suppliers, human resources and goods' rules of origin.
Budhi said Indonesia was best-placed to become the biggest auto component supplier in the region given the huge potential of the local automotive industry.
Car sales in the country were expected to reach 750,000 by 2009, 32 percent of the predicted 2.3 million units sold across ASEAN in the same year, he said. For this year, the industry association estimates national car sales will reach 500,000 from last year's 483,169.
The group, however, has yet to streamline customs procedures between members and to adopt shared product standards.
Despite the slow pace, Indonesia would keep pursuing the liberalization drive to try to meet the deadline, he said.
"It is an ongoing process," he said.
Earlier, Indonesia decided to delay liberalizing the country's automotive industry until 2010, by excluding HOW MANY ROUGHLY automotive products and their components.
As of last December's ASEAN summit in Vientiane, Laos, each member country is allowed to exclude no more than 641 groups of goods, or 15 percent of the total 4,273 tariff lines traded in the 11 priority sectors.
Budhi said the FTA would strengthen ASEAN as a single market.
The absence of tariff barriers between ASEAN countries by 2007 would encourage them to outsource from each other and synergize to form a regional production center, he said. However, member countries were cautious about implementing the AFTA, wary of tougher competition.
Intra-ASEAN trade has been consistently low since AFTA was first formulated more than a decade ago, unlike regional trade in European Union and the Mercosur, which had grown up to 75 percent and 35 percent respectively in the years leading up to 2003.
Mercosur, a South American economic group, consists of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Bolivia.