ASEAN to discuss stalled farm row

ASEAN to discuss stalled farm row

SINGAPORE (Reuter): ASEAN economic ministers will meet in
Singapore this week to try to end a protracted row over the
inclusion of farm goods in the group's free trade plan, diplomats
said.

The ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN), at a meeting in Thailand in December, postponed the
debate over farm trade for discussion at the April 26-28 meeting.

Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry said in a statement
the ministers would discuss the implementation of the ASEAN free
trade area (AFTA) at a meeting of the AFTA council on April 26.
It would be followed by two days of what the ministry called a
ministers' retreat.

There would be no formal agenda for the retreat, but the
ministers were expected to prepare for the World Trade
Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Singapore in December,
the ministry said.

The ministry statement said during the retreat, the ministers
would sign a new pact to step up ASEAN industrial cooperation.

A previous agreement allowed a maximum tariff of 5.0 percent
on automotive parts produced within ASEAN. The new pact will
extend the tariff limit to all industrial products.

The statement did not elaborate on the AFTA issues, but
diplomats said the ASEAN ministers would try to deal with
Indonesia's refusal to remove tariffs on 15 key farm products.

Under the AFTA scheme, tariffs on thousands of products would
be cut to a maximum of 5.0 percent by the year 2003. ASEAN groups
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand
and Vietnam.

Indonesia backed out of the deal to open up its farm markets
by the year 2003 ahead of the Bangkok summit in December, a move
that threatened to scuttle AFTA.