RP wary of trade pact of ASEAN, Australasia

RP wary of trade pact of ASEAN, Australasia

CANBERRA (Reuter): The Philippines would be cautious about entering a mooted Australasia-ASEAN trade pact because of Manila's reluctance to cut trade tariffs quickly, President Fidel Ramos said in an interview published yesterday.

"We would have to be sure because of the differences in the levels of development," Ramos, interviewed in The Australian newspaper, said of the chances of entering the proposed pact.

In early April Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating said he had agreed with Thailand to pursue the linkup of the Australia and New Zealand free trade pact CER (Closer Economic Relations), with AFTA, the ASEAN Free Trade Area.

ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, groups the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore -- some of Asia's fastest growing economies.

A combined free trade area covering ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand could be worth around A$1,400 billion (US$1,000 billion) a year, Keating said.

However, Keating said that a quickening of the pace of tariff reductions within AFTA was necessary before the wider free trade pact could be formed.

Ramos said his country had a slow rate of tariff reduction.

"The ones who can't immediately bring tariffs down, like us, must also be given consideration. This is a problem in AFTA now," Ramos said.

"Indonesia and the Philippines are seen as the slowest to reduce the number of tariff items, or items that are protected by quantitative restrictions," Ramos said.

"The more (tariff reductions) there are in the trading area the better the trading area would be in the end but we have to take care of that transition period very carefully."