ASEAN to regulate trademarks
ASEAN to regulate trademarks
PHUKET, Thailand (Reuter): Southeast Asian economic ministers
said yesterday they had reached agreement on creating a patent
and trademark system and had also endorsed measures to simplify
trading rules in their region.
Thai Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi said a
meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
economic ministers had agreed on measures to further free up the
trade regime in the area.
"This (patent and trademark system) will be a novelty to help
secure the protection of ASEAN citizens," Supachai told reporters
after day-long talks on this resort island.
The ministers agreed to eliminate a regionwide joint
investment program and breaks in tax incentives originally aimed
at boosting intra-regional trade in favor of a single tariff
scheme which would lower tariffs on a wide variety of products to
a maximum of five percent by 2003, he said.
"We are in agreement that this incentive scheme is incentive
enough for investors," Supachai said, referring to a tariff plan
conceived under the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA).
The ASEAN joint investment program, he said, has become too
bureaucratic and distorted the trading regime in the region.
"We intend to learn from the failure of these programs to
enhance industrial cooperation in ASEAN," He said.
Top ASEAN economic officials likewise expressed reservations
about tax and incentive regulations in the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) forum.
"ASEAN should adopt a more unified stand towards APEC,"
Supachai said, adding the issue will be discussed more thoroughly
in the group's ministerial meeting in Brunei in September.
All ASEAN members belong to the 18-member APEC, which is
committed to implementing a free-trade area in the Asia-Pacific
region by 2020.
ASEAN links Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore
and the Philippines.
Problems
The ministers may also discuss problems in reaching agreement
on putting together a list of unprocessed agricultural products
where tariff barriers may be reduced along with liberalized rules
for service industries, officials said.
Supachai reported no further progress on discussions over a
list of products where tariff barriers should be removed. ASEAN
officials have called the products a sensitive list of mainly
unprocessed agricultural commodities.
"The sensitive list is very sensitive so we have to be
sensitive about it," a light-hearted Chaiyot Sasomsub, Thai
deputy commerce minister, told reporters before the start of the
first round of talks yesterday morning.
Supachai said they would also pursue further talks to
liberalize rules in the service industry and that tourism may be
the first area to be opened up.
ASEAN officials said they are currently working to remove more
than 2,500 products currently covered by tariff barriers.
Under AFTA, each country will submit a list of industrial
products where tariff barriers will be lowered to a maximum of
five percent by 2003.
Malaysia has submitted a list of more than 100 goods, the
largest in ASEAN, on which it does not want tariffs removed.
Indonesia has the smallest list with just 27 products.