ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA
Subscriber Update
Update 16 – October 2007
Eleventh Round of Negotiations
The 11th meeting of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA) trade negotiating committee took place in Kuala Lumpur from 24 – 28 September 2007.
Overall, the round maintained continued momentum in a range of areas, including bringing the chapter texts on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Standards, Technical Regulations and Conformity Assessment to a state where they are almost completed. These are in addition to the Customs Procedures and Economic Cooperation chapters which were finalised prior to this round. We progressed market access negotiations with services and investment offers tabled by a number of ASEAN countries.
However, the round made limited progress in capitalising on the guidance provided by Ministers at the 12th ASEAN Economic Ministers and Closer Economic Relations Trade Ministers meeting held in Manila in August, with negotiators still unable to agree on tariff modalities. Intensified advocacy efforts will be required, particularly in some ASEAN countries, to raise the level of ambition for the market access outcomes in goods, services and investment.
On goods, negotiation on tariff modalities continues to represent the greatest challenge. Progress made in this area was not sufficient to move negotiations to the next stage of exchanging initial tariff offers. Key issues remaining unresolved include the timeframes for eliminating all Normal Track tariffs (covering 90% of tariff lines) and the extent to which tariffs in the Sensitive Track (covering the remaining 10%) will be eliminated. However, progress was made on the draft chapter text on Trade in Goods.
The working group on rules of origin (ROO) made good progress on the product specific rules (PSRs) for tariff lines covering textiles. However, considerable detailed work remains to be done in this area, particularly considering the number of tariff lines still to be considered. Good progress was also made on the Operational Certification Procedures (OCP) which will provide the administrative basis for certification and verification processes.
Negotiations on services made modest progress, with differences between ASEANs becoming sharper on some issues. Steady progress was made with the draft text on Trade in Services with the submission of revised market access offers from some ASEAN countries. There was limited ASEAN engagement on financial services, movement of natural persons, telecommunications and electronic commerce.
Negotiations on investment made steady progress. There was discussion of the initial offers tabled by Brunei and Singapore (Australia tabled its initial offer at the 10th round). New Zealand and the remaining ASEAN6* confirmed their intention to submit initial offers by December. Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Vietnam will require more time to submit their offers. Some progress was made in narrowing differences on some of the outstanding issues in the draft chapter text.
Economic cooperation negotiations made good progress, with the chapter text finalised and the text of the implementing arrangement for the work program agreed. There was also agreement on the step-by-step process for delivering a set of concrete project proposals by May 2008.
Reasonable progress was made on a range of legal and institutional issues. Priority was given to the dispute settlement chapter text where good progress was made in clarifying points of difference. ASEAN confirmed their agreement to the inclusion of a separate chapter on intellectual property.
The next meeting is scheduled to take place in Siem Reap, Cambodia from 10 - 14 December 2007.
*ASEAN6: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
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