Thailand sees faster tariff cuts within ASEAN

Thailand sees faster tariff cuts within ASEAN

BANGKOK (Reuter): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is likely to agree when it meets next week to slash trade tariffs between its six member countries, faster than originally anticipated, a senior Thai official said.

Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi said the timetable for the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) would have to be accelerated in light of worldwide tariff cuts agreed in the Uruguay Round of world trade talks signed in April.

"I don't think AFTA could be seen to be proceeding at a slower pace than an international agreement. Otherwise there would be no raison d'etre for AFTA at all," Supachai told reporters late on Wednesday.

"The shortening process will be agreed certainly in principle," he said.

Whatever ASEAN economic ministers agree in five days of talks in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai will have to be approved when their leaders next meet in 1995, he said.

Under AFTA, member countries Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines must cut tariffs on trade in goods in stages, with some tariffs eventually falling almost to zero.

Thailand has proposed speeding up the deadline for final tariff reduction to 7-10 years from 12-15 years for those goods that each country has assigned to a so-called "normal track" and to 5-7 years from 10 years for "fast-track" items.

As the timetable became effective in 1993, this means by current standards customs tariffs on goods in both tracks must fall to between zero and five percent by the year 2008 at the latest.

Elimination

It has also asked to eliminate the "exclusion list", which exempts specially-protected industries from being on either track for five years.

Supachai, who supervises Thailand's international trade policy, said his ASEAN colleagues would definitely agree to the accelerating of the normal track to at least 10 years. "I'm sure it will be acceptable," he said, but added: "Fast track I'm not so sure."

The meeting's agenda also includes discussion of breaking down barriers to trade in services and agreeing to uniform standards on intellectual property rights among all ASEAN members.

"It might also be proposed...to include the services sector in the AFTA tariff reduction scheme," Supachai said.

ASEAN ministers would repeat their call for the Uruguay Round under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to be implemented as soon as possible and their objections to having trade linked with social issues like human rights or labor, Supachai said.

"We sincerely feel that all these linked trade issues will be used as a pretext for protectionist measures," he said.

The ministers will also discuss the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministerial meeting and summit in November in Indonesia.

"This time not to be caught off guard as we were in (last year's) Seattle meeting, we'll be looking at the major issues... particularly a proposal to liberalize the trading regime..." said Supachai.

"According to informal deliberations, there should be no outright objections to such a proposal," he said.

ASEAN is already looking at possibilities of cooperating on lower tariffs with other regional trade groupings, especially Australia and New Zealand.

The meeting will also include half-day meetings with representatives from Japan's Ministry of Trade and Industry and from Vietnam, who is the closest of all of ASEAN's neighbors, to becoming the first new member since the early 1980s.