ASEAN LEADERS SAYS FREE TRADE AREA IS ON TRACK

BY D. ARUL RAJOO

HUA HIN, Oct 24 (Bernama) -- The 10 South East Asian countries have
reiterated that the realisation of the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA) on Jan 1,
2010 is well on track, despite scepticism over some members' commitment in
cutting tariff for major agricultural products.

In a chairman's statement released at the 15th Asean Summit here Saturday,
the leaders said that by Jan 1, all tariffs for products in the CEPT Inclusion
List of the six original signatories to the CEPT Agreement would be eliminated
for intra-ASEAN trade.

These account for 87.2 per cent of total intra-Asean imports while the
remaining Asean members would also not be far behind as 98.86 per cent of their
products have tariffs within zero to five per cent.

" The effective implementation of this major milestone in AFTA brings Asean
closer to the Asean Economic Community where free flow of goods is one of its
major objectives," the statement said.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is leading the Malaysian
delegation to the Summit.

Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, had threathened that it would
not sign the Afta liberalisation for the rice trade next year if the Philippines
does not import at least 360,000 tonnes of rice, tariff-free, annually from
Thailand.

Manila, which classifies rice as a "highly sensitive good", has committed to
reduce its import duty from 40 per cent to 35 per cent by 2015, and was only
willing to import 50,000 tonnes at zero-free tariff.

Malaysia and Indonesia will reduce tariff to 20 per cent and 25 per cent
respectively.

The leaders also said that they are looking forward to the implementation of
the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement and urged member states to resolve the
differences at the earliest opportunity.

The issue of Myanmar was also raised in the statement, but unlike in
previous meetings where the country's democracy and human rights issues were
always the main focus, only one paragraph was mentioned.

The leaders underscored the importance of achieving national reconciliation
and that the general elections to be next year must be conducted in a fair,
free, inclusive and transparent manner in order to be credible to the
international community.

In another statement on Asean connectivity, the leaders said as the region
was located at the crossroads of an economically vibrant and growing region, it
has the potential to physically anchor itself as the transportation, information
and communication technology, and tourism hub of this region.

They said it was vital to complete road, rail, air, and sea linkages within
Asean, adding that the development of infrastructure and multi-modal transport
projects such as the Asean Highway Network and the Singapore-Kunming Rail Link
should be expedited.

-- BERNAMA