ASEAN moves AFTA five years ahead of schedule
ASEAN moves AFTA five years ahead of schedule
BANGKOK (AFP): Economy ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said yesterday they would enact a comprehensive trade tariff agreement by 2003, five years ahead of schedule, Thai television reported.
The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), which requires preferential tariffs of zero to five percent for trade between ASEAN-member countries, was also expanded to cover unprocessed agricultural products, state-run Channel 7 reported.
The decision, made at the annual economic ministers gathering in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai, has been hinted at for nearly a year.
The original purpose of the anti-protectionist agreement, launched in January 1993, was to ensure low tariffs on manufactured goods in the combined ASEAN market of some 320 million people.
But ASEAN officials, surprised by the rapid growth of their own economies and the proliferation of trading blocs, including the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum, have questioned the 15-year deadline originally set to meet the new tariff rates.
The accelerated agreement will cover 15 categories of manufactured goods including textiles, petrochemicals, plastics and electronics, the report said.
Goods currently taxed 20 percent or less are to reach the below-five-percent goal within five years, it said.
Goods taxed more than 20 percent are to wait seven years before the new rates are in place, it said.
Other goods which are already moving towards the new regulations through normal tax adjustments will have 10 years to reach their goal, it said.
Significantly, the ministers added unprocessed agricultural goods to the roster, including rice, vegetables, fruit, cassava and coffee, the report said without adding further details.
The ASEAN economies comprise the world's largest exporters of several agricultural products, including rice and cassava.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Property rights
Meanwhile, a Commerce Ministry official said here that the ASEAN economic ministers will draft an agreement this week to protect intellectual property.
The landmark agreement, which would be the first of its kinds in Southeast Asia, would likely be sealed during the 1995 ASEAN summit in Bangkok, he said.
Protecting copyright on everything from music to T-shirts has become an urgent trade issue for ASEAN. Its economic ministers are attending an annual meeting in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai this week.
Developing nation members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) have five years to meet the body's mutual copyright protection guidelines.
The draft agreement for ASEAN could be an interim step toward meeting the GATT goal, the official said.
The agreement is expected to borrow from other conventions, such as the Paris Union, the Berne Convention and the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization, he said.
Several ASEAN members already belong to international copyright conventions.
Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines are members of the Berne Convention on artistic works. The Philippines and Indonesia have entered the Paris Union for industrial patents and trademarks.
But Western countries have charged that enforcement of copyrights has been lax and uncoordinated.
Thailand, for instance, has been on a U.S. Priority Watch List for failure to protect copyrights of films and music.
The head of the intellectual property rights division of the Thai Commerce Ministry told reporters yesterday that the problem was as much a domestic one as international, with most Thais not knowing they could register their own ideas for patents and protection.