Southeast Asian trade growing more slowly: Report

Southeast Asian trade growing more slowly: Report

SINGAPORE (DPA): Southeast Asian trade flows are not picking up as quickly as some officials had hoped with less than a year to go before the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) comes into full bloom, a workshop report said on Saturday.

"Intra-trade growth was around 10 percent yearly, smaller than we had hoped for," Cho Cho Wynn, a senior trade officer at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretariat said at the Singapore meeting.

Under the Common Effective Preference Tariff (CEPT) scheme, AFTA's main driving mechanism, tariffs on a wide range of products traded will be cut to zero to 5 percent and quotas and other non-tariff barriers will also be removed.

ASEAN was to turn fully into a free trade area by 2008, but that date was advanced to next January 1 for the more developed members of the grouping.

New members have more time with 2006 set for Vietnam, 2008 for Laos and Myanmar (Burma) and 2010 for Cambodia.

While officials attending the workshop said the pace of intra- ASEAN trade has quickened since 1993, Efren Leano, an assistant director of the Tokyo-based ASEAN Centre, said a 50 percent annual increase in intra-trade had been hoped for.

The workshop on Friday was the last of a series held during the past two weeks in Jakarta, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Kuala Lumpur.

Participants blamed the slower-than-expected growth largely on lack of awareness about the scheme among manufacturers and traders.

Intra-ASEAN trade has grown faster than the regional grouping's trade with the outside world, noted Khong Mun Pew, director for trade policy at Singapore's Trade Development Board.

The lower tariffs apply to products with at least 40 percent ASEAN local content. Some products, including rice, sugar, garlic and meat, have been placed on a "sensitive list" and exempted from the cuts for the time being.