Asean, EU may take years to ink FTA
Financial Express (India)
Asean, EU may take years to ink FTA
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
MAY 15: A free trade agreement between the Association of Southeast Asia Nations and the European Union will take "many years’’ to complete due to organisational differences, Asean secretary general Ong Keng Yong said.
European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson met with the region’s economic ministers in Brunei this month where they agreed to start negotiations. A deal may come only nearer to 2015, the year Asean is targeting for the creation of a single market for its 10 members, Ong said in an interview in Singapore.
"The EU is a rules-based economic grouping, while Asean is far from any formalized integrated economic structure,’’ Ong said. "They have defined rules and established practices for every sector and product and it will take a long time for us from Asean to digest and conclude acceptable arrangements for both sides. It’ll be a long, drawn-out process.’’ The European Union’s governments last month gave the go-ahead for the bloc to open trade negotiations with India, South Korea, Asean and Central America as talks on a worldwide agreement falter. Southeast Asian nations are seeking ways to improve their competitiveness against neighbors China and India, the world’s two fastest-growing major economies.
"Now that the European Union is interested in talking on free trade arrangements with its trading partners, we have to seize this opportunity to join the bandwagon and not be left behind,’’ Ong said.
"It’s important for Asean to be talking to the EU as it is a major export destination for our products.’’ The 27-nation EU has set out a strategy for concluding individual and regional trade accords since the so-called Doha Round of World Trade Organisation talks collapsed last July.
"There’s an element that people are not confident of the progress in the Doha Round of talks, but there’s also the view that there is no harm in having a second basket of arrangements,’’ Ong said. "Having said that, we at Asean are still committed to the multi-lateral trading system.’’ Other impediments to the talks include the political situation in Myanmar, Ong said. The EU last month renewed sanctions on Myanmar’s military rulers to protest the imprisonment of Nobel Peace Prize-winning opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Myanmar’s is ranked one of the most oppressive in the world, and has been criticized for the detention of political prisoners and other human rights abuses.
– Bloomberg
