Agreements to be signed during summit this month
Asean and Chinese leaders will
ink two agreements facilitating trade growth between the two sides under the
Asean-China Free-Trade Agree-ment (FTA) at their bilateral summit this month.
The two sides' leaders are
scheduled to meet on November 18 in Cambodia during a summit of the Asean
leaders plus those of six partner countries.
Commerce Ministry
Inspector-General Boonyarit Kalayanamit said that trade and investment between
Asean and China should grow following the recent agreement of both sides to
eliminate technical trade barriers.
The first agreement to be signed
by Asean and China would eliminate technical trade barriers and sanitary and
phytosanitary (animal and plant health) standards. The second would support
free trade by giving officials more flexibility in drawing up rules to
facilitate business growth between Asean and China.
China has also agreed to provide
financial support for promoting closer economic ties with Asean.
After a delay in approving a
budget, Boonyarit said the Chinese government has shown positive signs that it
will allocate funds to support many Asean projects soon.
Thailand has asked for support on
two projects. The first, known as the Asean-China Capacity Building Workshop on
Rules and Regu-lations under Trade in Services, will exchange knowledge on
trade rules and regulations in the service sector to improve enterprises'
understanding of how to penetrate the Asean and China markets.
The second project, Best Practice
on Good Agricultural Production (GAP), will increase understanding of farm
production systems and promote exports of farm goods on both sides.
At the upcoming summit, the two
sides will also wrap up an agreement on trade liberalisation. Certain goods on
both sides remain sensitive. For these sensitive items, both sides have agreed
to cut tariffs to less than 20 per cent in 2015, and will bring tariffs for
most products down to zero by 2018. Sensitive goods for China include coffee,
seeds, rice, nuts, garlic and onions.
China is currently the largest
trading partner of both Asean and Thailand. Bilateral trade grew fivefold from
US$59.6 billion (Bt1.83 trillion) to $288.39 billion from 2003 - when the FTA
kicked off - and the first nine months of this year.
Petchanet Pratruangkrai
Business & Investment Opportunities
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