ASEAN trade up in 2002, shows signs of continued expansion
ASEAN trade up in 2002, shows signs of continued expansion
Agence France-Presse Phnom Penh
Total trade in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) expanded slightly in 2002, but shows signs of picking up this year, economic ministers from the 10-nation bloc said Monday.
Total ASEAN trade grew 2.75 percent year-on-year to US$706 billion last year, with the United States, Japan, the European Union and China as its top trading partners, they said.
"Trade ministers were pleased to note that this trend continued up to the first quarter of 2003," the ministers said in a joint statement after an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) Council meeting in the Cambodian capital.
It said total trade for the January to March period rose 15.29 percent year-on-year to $186.25 billion.
Intra-ASEAN trade, meanwhile, grew 4.82 percent to $159.46 billion in the same period. Trade among the 10 members of the organization in the first quarter of the year to March was up 5.77 percent to $39.90 billion.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The AFTA council meeting was part of related meetings to the ASEAN Economic Ministers meeting being held this week here. The ministers are expected to speed up the creation of a regional single market dubbed the "ASEAN economic community."
The economic community may take the form of an enlarged free trade area with zero intra-regional tariffs, where labor and capital can also move freely.
ASEAN is already implementing a free trade area in which senior members Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand will totally abolish tariffs for intra- regional trade by 2010.
Newer members Cambodia , Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are to dismantle their tariffs 10 years later.
Already 99.6 percent of products have already been knocked down since that was launched in 1992. It is expected that only 0.50 percent of all products traded in the region would remain with above five percent tariff this year.
The average common effective preferential tariff for the six senior ASEAN members has gone down to 2.39 percent this year, the ministers said.