Tuesday, April 10, 2007 Asean, Australia free trade talks move slowly
FREE trade talks have started between the Asean trade bloc and the twin countries down under, Australia and New Zealand. But these are moving slowly.
This was the update given this week by Philippine chief negotiator Tomas Aquino, senior undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), on the latest developments in trade relations.
Aquino told business leaders mostly those in exports, that the Philippines is engaged in the Asean-Australia-New Zealand talks primarily to equalize the advantages taken by some "powerful competitors in the Asian region who have beaten us."
Those players have been exporting the same products, duty free, as a result of bilateral agreements between them and Australia.
The negotiations are wider in scope than most treaties already forged by the Asean with other nations in East Asia. The talks have reached the stage when each country is drawing up its list of sensitive products that will not be totally opened for drastic tariff cuts.
So far, the Philippines has only signed up one economic cooperation pact with Japan. But the agreement, to take effect, will still be ratified by the Japanese Diet and the Philippine Senate.
A regional agreement between Asean and South Korea was signed late in 2005 but will be enjoyed only by Philippine exporters if and when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will ratify it during the Senate recess.
A bigger treaty with China, which started with the early harvest agreement on the duty-free export of goods from the Asean trade bloc, that will now include the free flow of professionals, was signed last January, during the Asian summit in Cebu.
Talks are also on-going between the Asean and India and between the same group with the European Union.
The Philippines has not started formal free trade talks with its close ally and number one export market, the United States, to beat the July, 2007 deadline for US President George W. Bush to exercise his authority to negotiate on a fast-track basis. (Philexport News and Features)
