Asian nations to sign trade deal despite Bangladesh pullout
Asian nations to sign trade deal despite Bangladesh pullout
Sarah Stewart, Agence France-Presse, Phuket, Thailand
Asian foreign ministers on Sunday salvaged a free trade deal
jeopardized by Bangladesh's sudden withdrawal, pledging to throw
open their markets by abolishing tariffs before 2017, officials
said.
The five founding nations of BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, India,
Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand -- Economic Cooperation) were
expected to ink the draft deal at a ceremony later on Sunday,
leaving new members Bhutan and Nepal to join later.
But Bangladesh pulled out Saturday after demanding
compensation for any revenue lost as a result of dropping
tariffs, ignoring other members' assurances that their concerns
could be addressed within the agreement.
Faced with the prospect of only four of the seven BIMSTEC
members signing up to the deal, the Thai hosts considered
postponing the ceremony to a summit planned for July when it
hoped more nations would be ready to join.
However, Nepal and Bhutan saved the day by making quick
decisions to enter the deal, Thai foreign ministry spokesman
Sihasak Phuangketkeow said after a meeting of the group's foreign
ministers on this Thai resort island.
"Six countries will be signing with the exception of
Bangladesh," he told reporters. "In the end (the ministers)
decided that if they didn't sign it after having already
announced it, it would send out the wrong signal."
Sihasak said Bangladesh had wrongly thought that because a
BIMSTEC summit originally planned for Monday was postponed
several weeks ago, the signing of the free trade deal would also
be delayed.
"Maybe that issue of compensation could have been cleared up
in time if they had not been under the impression that the
signing would be postponed until the summit," he said.
"They don't see the issue of compensation as something that
can't be resolved... there are quite a few ways of dealing with
the concerns of Bangladesh."
Under the deal, BIMSTEC's more-developed members India, Sri
Lanka and Thailand will commit to abolish tariffs by 2012 while
the three less-developed members Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal will
have another five-year grace period.
Tariffs will begin to be reduced in mid-2006, with products
designated for "fast track" treatment to be traded on a zero-
tariff basis by mid-2009 for the three developed members and by
mid-2011 for the poorer members.
Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said in an opening
speech that the seven-nation BIMSTEC grouping was "the logical
linking mechanism to bring together various interlocking pieces
of the jigsaw puzzle that is Asia."
The BIMSTEC trade deal, aimed at linking South and Southeast
Asia which together are home to nearly two billion people, was
part of a trend towards unfettered trade in the region, he said.
"This network of functional cooperation, while embryonic, has
the potential, in time, to develop into an Asian economic
community," he said, referring to the web of agreements,
dialogues and joint projects signed in recent years.
"BIMSTEC is poised to fulfill its promise of bridging South
and Southeast Asia and elevating the relationship onto a higher
plane of cooperation."
Nepal and Bhutan were on Sunday formally admitted to the
grouping, represented by their foreign ministers who both wore
national dress -- Bhutan's Lyonpo Khandu Wanchuk resplendent in a
knee-length checkered robe cinched at the waist.
Officials said earlier that the ongoing talks would touch on
establishing a common position on terrorism, and finding ways to
cooperate to fight infectious diseases like the bird flu which
has swept across Asia.
The bird flu outbreak has killed 18 people in Vietnam and
Thailand and emerged in poultry in eight other Asian nations,
only a year after the SARS epidemic caused panic as it swept the
region.