ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA
Subscriber Update
Update 3 – 1 September 2005
Third Round of Negotiations
ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand trade officials met for the second round of FTA negotiations in Auckland from 29 June - 1 The third round of ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA negotiations was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, from 18 – 20 August 2005.
Discussions focused on key areas of the negotiations, including trade in goods, trade in services and a range of trade facilitation issues. Experts also met separately to discuss rules of origin, and legal and institutional issues.
With the number of countries engaged in the negotiations and the diversity in the levels of development within the region, the negotiations are complicated, and still at an initial stage.
Detailed work programs are in place to take forward negotiations on goods (including rules of origin), services and framework and dispute settlement issues. This includes further exchange of information – to prepare us for the negotiation of specific commitments down the track – and the drafting of papers outlining possible ways forward on key aspects of the negotiations.
Detailed exchanges took place in the discussion on trade in goods, with each country seeking further explanation of tariff structures, customs procedures, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures and other goods-related issues.
Discussions on rules of origin issues and regimes resulted in agreement to begin outlining the contents of a draft chapter. This progress was assisted by a rules of origin capacity building workshop held in Kuala Lumpur in late July that helped to increase understanding of the different approaches to rules of origin in FTAs.
Information exchange on services and further explanation on the possible elements of a services chapter helped countries to come to a common understanding of the issues to be negotiated. Negotiators also discussed possible approaches to telecommunications and financial services.
Information exchange and discussion of working papers also continued in areas such as dispute settlement and framework provisions. Further discussion on government procurement, competition policy and intellectual property was aimed at helping to build understanding between countries on how these could be addressed in an FTA.
The need for further information to be exchanged at this meeting meant that there was no discussion of commitments which might be entered into in the Agreement.
At the next round of negotiations, to be held in Australia from 26 – 28 October, negotiators will begin discussing the possible structure and content of chapters of the agreement.
Ministers will also be reviewing progress in the negotiations when they meet in Laos on 30 September 2005.
More information on the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA