ASEAN strides impressively towards economic unity

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) may have a lot to say for its success in various realms during its expedition towards a wonderland of economic unity, but one of the prominent that could be seen is the tariff reduction or the removal of intra-ASEAN tariff barriers.

ASEAN concluded a deal in Singapore in 1992 and decided to phase in the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) Scheme from 1993 for its expedition, which is also the key work for the grouping to realize the ASEAN Free Trade Area and the economic integration. With 13 years of endeavor, ASEAN has achieved a lot now and is making an impressive move to the goal in the gaze of the outside world.

According to data released by ASEAN here in August this year, Singapore spearheaded in the tariff reduction in ASEAN. The country had pushed all of its products under the CEPT Scheme of ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) into the Inclusive List and brought down the tariff rates of all of them under 5 percent.

Thailand also had put all of its products under the Scheme into the Inclusive List, but only 99.91 percent of these products' tariff rates were lower than 5 percent.

Under the Scheme, ASEAN had set a target to bring down the tariff rates for all products in the Inclusive List below 5 percent by 2008 as a measure to realize the AFTA as well as its economic integration.

Indonesia had 98.88 percent of products that it had fed into the CEPT Scheme in the Inclusive List, and Brunei had 92.73 percent. But tariff rates of all of their products in the Inclusive List were lowered below 5 percent.

Malaysia had 99.29 percent of products in the Inclusive List and the Philippines had 99.59 percent. The tariff rates of more than 99 percent of these products were lowered below 5 percent.

For the six original ASEAN member countries, the average 99.77 percent of their products in the Inclusive List had a tariff rate below 5 percent.

The four new ASEAN member countries -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) -- lagged behind the six in tariff reduction, but not very far, except Cambodia.

ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Rong had said that these figures could show the significant progress made by ASEAN in its tariff reduction for the realization of the grouping's economic integration.

Tariff reduction was just one mission for ASEAN to complete before it could reach economic integration, although the grouping did well for it. The grouping had to proceed with other missions, for example, sectoral integration, further liberalization, and trade facilitation, where it also performed well.

The 36th ASEAN Economic Ministers meeting held in Indonesia in 2004 set the eleven priority sectors for integration. Now ASEAN had added some wider and stronger measures for the integration of these sectors. Meanwhile, it was identifying the logistics sector as the 12th priority sector.

In the realm of services liberalization, ASEAN had been proceeding in a progressive manner since the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) in 1995. Four packages of commitments under AFAS had been implemented since 1997. ASEAN's negotiations for the fifth package of commitments, which started in January last year, was expected to be completed by the end of this year.

For the fifth package, ASEAN members would be opening up the market for 70 sectors and sub-sectors. ASEAN leaders already had agreed to advance the liberalization of service sector from 2020 to 2015.

ASEAN had been attaching great importance to trade facilitation in its expedition towards economic integration, where it had seen major achievements.

ASEAN has improved various documents, programs and action plans in this area to strengthen their customs integration and cooperation and simplify and harmonize their customs procedures to facilitate trade within the grouping, including the establishment of ASEAN e-Customs by applying information and communication technology.

Recently, ASEAN also established the technical framework for the Single ASEAN Window (SAW) and finalized the protocol for the establishment and implementation of the ASW.

Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam had set up their national working bodies for the ASW and National Single Windows. Their work programs were being implemented.

ASEAN's efforts for economic integration had generated positive results.

ASEAN economies still managed to achieve an average of 5.5 percent growth last year despite challenges like high oil prices as well as natural disasters and avian flu on some member countries.

It also attracted foreign direct investment (FDI) totaling 38 billion U.S. dollars in the year, an increase of 48 percent against the previous year.

The grouping's total exports for 2005 rose 13.5 percent year-on- year to 646 billion U.S. dollars.

In 2003, ASEAN leaders mapped out a grand blueprint at their 9th summit in Bali, Indonesia, for the grouping to be integrated into a Europe Union-like community by 2020, built upon three pillars, one of which is the ASEAN Economic Community embracing some 5 million population.

ASEAN recently had proposed to advance this deadline to 2015. ASEAN leaders said that they were very, very confident about that.

Source: Xinhua