ASEAN gearing for trade liberalization

ASEAN gearing for trade liberalization

MANILA (AFP): Economic ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will push for an accelerated free trade area in the region when they meet here in October, a Philippine trade official said yesterday.

Trade and Industry Assistant Secretary Edsel Custodio told reporters here that ASEAN economic ministers are expected to push for the acceleration of an envisioned ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) from the original schedule of 2003 to the year 2000.

Custodio said all member-economies were due to submit a list for tariff reduction at the meeting.

The October discussions will also include prospects for the ASEAN Investment Area, which aims for a free flow of investments in the region by the year 2010 and by the year 2020 to include non-ASEAN economies.

Under an agreement reached in 1993, the six more developed ASEAN members -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- agreed to create a free-trade area with tariffs of five percent or less by 2003.

Vietnam, which joined ASEAN in 1995, has until 2006 while the deadline for newcomers Myanmar and Laos is 2008.

Custodio did not say if the deadlines for these three countries would also be changed.

He admitted, however, that "the most prominent issue" to be discussed was the raging financial crisis that has plunged many ASEAN members into recession.

"The main question is what has ASEAN done to address the crisis?", he said, stressing "social safety nets" would still have to be developed.

ASEAN groups Brunei,Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.