ASEAN SYSTEMATIC ECONOMIC INTEGRATION TO BOOST GROWTH IN REGION, SAYS MITI

KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 (Bernama) -- The systematic economic integration
within Asean, combined with the region's enhanced engagements with its dialogue
partners, is expected to lead the region on the road to sustained economic
recovery and growth in 2010.

Intra-Asean trade and investment flows are also expected to further expand
with the realisation of Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA), Asean Trade in Goods
Agreement (ATIGA) and the respective free trade agreements (FTAs), says the
Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in its 2009 report released
Monday.

To achieve this, MITI says the business community in the region in general
and Malaysia in particular, must take the initiative to understand the workings
of AFTA and the other Asean FTAs.

"The private sector must also operationalise these FTAs to truly benefit
from them," it says.

Since January this year, the six Asean member states of Brunei, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand have become a complete FTA,
whereby under the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme, they
eliminated duties on all products in the inclusion list with the exception of a
few products in the sensitive and highly sensitive lists.

MITI says the CEPT scheme will be superceeded by the ATIGA, which is
expected to come in force by next month.

To simplify clearance of goods at the boarder and increase intra-Asean
trade, a work plan by Asean has been drawn up to implement self-certification on
the rules of origin by early 2012.

Asean also plans to adopt the certified exporter methodology under this
mechanism.

On the non-tariff barriers, MITI says the Asean-5 (Brunei, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand) are committed in removing all barriers this
year, the Philippines by 2011 and Cambodia, Loas, Myanmar and Vietnam by 2018
to facilitate the free flow of goods in Asean.

MITI says the study indicated that the next logical step for Asean is to
consolidate these FTAs into a single regional undertaking involving the East
Asia Dialogue Partners.

Consultations are ongoing on the merit of the East Asia Free Trade Area.

"Asean remained steadfast in its commitment to achieve the vision of an
Asean Economic Community by 2015, even though faced with the global economic and
financial crisis in 2008 and 2009," it says.

In 2009, total Asean trade in goods fell by 10.5 per cent to US$1,521.3
billion from US$1,711.3 billion in 2008.
-- BERNAMA