ASEAN, EU Discuss FTA Issues

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Officials and business representatives from the ten Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states and the European Union (EU) have recently held a meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia, to discuss the challenges and opportunities of free trade agreements (FTAs).

Organised by the EU-ASEAN's "Enhancing ASEAN FTA Negotiation Capacity Programme", the event focused on ASEAN and the EU trade policies, as well as on new and emerging trade issues. The event also included a dialogue for participants to share their knowledge and experience related to key issues such as the challenges of FTA implementation and post-trade agreement adjustment.

During the event, participants engaged in negotiation simulation exercises that focused on trade negotiating techniques, methodologies and tools. The four-day event coincided with Cambodia’s hosting of the ASEAN Senior Economic Officials Meeting in Siem Reap on January 17-19.

The "Enhancing ASEAN FTA Negotiating Capacity Programme" supports ASEAN economic integration and facilitates ASEAN’s preparedness for participating in FTA negotiations. The programme is designed to provide high-quality training, research and analysis, and bilateral FTA negotiation simulations for government and private sector ASEAN representatives.

"With a series of 10 workshops all over ASEAN, starting here today in Siem Reap, the EU-ASEAN cooperation will provide a forum for ASEAN trade practitioners and officials to reflect on trade issues, which really matter,” said Andreas Roettger, the Delegation of the EU to ASEAN’s Head of Economic and Regional Cooperation. “We expect a meaningful contribution to enhance mutual understanding on trade matters and the negotiation processes. Free trade is essential for economic development and growth in support of competitiveness, consumer welfare and poverty reduction.”

“ASEAN and the EU are already keen and important trading partners – the EU being the largest export market for ASEAN,” he added. “Both regional blocks can only benefit if this partnership prospers further."

ASEAN as a whole represents the EU's third largest trading partner outside Europe (after the US and China), with more than EUR175bn (USD223.8bn) of trade in goods and services in 2010. The EU represents ASEAN's largest export partner with exports of more than EUR90bn in 2011, and an annual trade surplus to ASEAN of nearly EUR25bn.

EU and ASEAN started talks on a region-to-region FTA in 2007. When those negotiations were suspended in 2009, the EU member states decided, instead, to pursue negotiations towards FTAs with the individual ten countries within ASEAN.

However, while the EU is therefore currently at various stages of negotiating trade agreements with Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and talks with Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand are also said to be under consideration, the EU still believes that an FTA between both regions “makes political and economic sense in the long term and its strategic objective of concluding an agreement with ASEAN as a region is retained.”