ASEAN, CER sign accord on standards

JAKARTA (JP): Economic ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and countries of the Australia- New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (CER) signed here yesterday a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on cooperation in standards and conformance of products.

"This is the first MOU between the two free trade areas, which represents a considerable achievement in a short span of time," Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Production and Distribution Hartarto said after the second informal consultation meeting between ASEAN and CER yesterday.

Hartarto, who chaired the two regions' meeting jointly with New Zealand Minister for Trade Negotiations Philip Burdon, told the press that the MOU will provide a framework of cooperation on standards and conformance of products between the two regions.

He said that during their consultative meeting, the ministers discussed international economic issues, including those related to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

The ASEAN and CER ministers reaffirmed their commitments to the multilateral trading system and the need to reinforce the process of liberalization within the WTO framework.

"This has been the basis on which ministers decided to establish the linkages between our two free trade areas, reflecting the open regionalism concept of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (Afta) and CER," Hartarto said.

He noted that trade between the two regions grew by 49.8 percent from only US$7.9 billion in 1990 to $15.8 billion last year. ASEAN bought about 14 percent of CER exports.

Meanwhile, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, who is also a trade minister, told reporters yesterday that the economic ministers of the two regions agreed that the WTO ministerial meeting in Singapore should discuss only the core trade issues.

"We agree with the ASEAN approach to stick to the core trade issues, particularly in relation to labor standards, which are best dealt with by the International Labor Organization," he said.

Minister Burdon said that New Zealand also agreed with the ASEAN approach in the WTO.

ASEAN -- which groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- strongly opposes the plan of the United States and a number of European countries to raise non-trade issues, such as labor standards, corruption, procurement and competition policies, at the WTO's ministerial meeting in Singapore.

ASEAN and CER ministers also expressed their concern over the extraterritorial application of recent U.S. legislation which imposes sanctions on countries or enterprises doing businesses with Cuba and several other countries.

They also agreed that at their next consultative meeting in Malaysia next September, they will hold a similar consultation with the representatives of the private sector from both regions. (13)

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