FTA with ASEAN a priority: China

FTA with ASEAN a priority: China

Agence France-Presse, Singapore

China views the conclusion of a free trade agreement (FTA) with ASEAN as a priority, but is not excluding possible bilateral deals with some countries in the region, a report said on Thursday.

Long Yongtu, China's vice minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, said in an interview with the Straits Times that some ASEAN countries such as Thailand have expressed desire for an FTA with China.

"At this juncture, we think maybe we should focus our efforts more on the ASEAN-China FTA rather than bilateral ones," said Long, China's chief negotiator in its successful bid for entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"But I don't think we exclude the possibility of having some bilateral FTAs with some of the ASEAN countries as a stepping stone, as part and parcel of the overall FTA between ASEAN and China," he said.

China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) last year completed a blueprint to create the world's largest free-trade bloc of nearly two billion people within 10 years.

The framework provides for an "early harvest" provision under which China and the 10-member ASEAN can open up certain sectors to each other even before the FTA actually takes effect as a sign of goodwill.

Long, who was on a visit to Singapore, said these could possibly cover agricultural products like tropical fruits, according to the report.

However, Long said China was constrained by its negotiating capacities and had to focus on selected areas.

"China has just entered into the WTO (World Trade Organization). We are really not familiar with all these very sophisticated negotiations and also our negotiating capacities are not very strong.

"So we have to focus on a few things rather than to try to do many things at the same time," he said.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The group has been losing out to China in terms of foreign investments partly because of cheaper labor costs there, but officials have said the giant Chinese market also offers vast opportunities. `