ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA
Subscriber Update
Update 17 – January 2008
Twelfth Round of Negotiations
The 12th meeting of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA) trade negotiating committee took place in Siem Reap, Cambodia, from 10 – 14 December 2007.
Overall, solid progress was made in most areas of negotiations, particularly on rules of origin, services, intellectual property, economic cooperation and legal issues. The round also saw important progress on tariff modalities although final agreement was not reached. Negotiations are now approaching the final phase.
On goods, progress was made on tariff modalities (the principles that will guide the preparation of detailed tariff offers) although final agreement was not reached. The issue relating to 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 remains unresolved. However, there was some narrowing of differences and there was agreement to exchange more detailed information on each country’s indicative approach to initial tariff offers at the next meeting as a means of trying to finalise the modalities. Progress was also made on the draft revised Chapter on Trade in Goods.
The working group on rules of origin (ROO) made good progress on the product specific rules. 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 text for the operational certification procedures which will provide the administrative basis for the certification and verification process.
Negotiations on services made good progress with all parties agreeing to submit revised offers at the next meeting. Further progress was made on the draft text on Trade in Services although differences remain in some areas of the text. There was increased engagement on movement of natural persons and telecommunications. Increased engagement on electronic commerce is expected at the next round in March.
Negotiations on investment made modest progress. There was discussion of the initial offers tabled by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and New Zealand (Australia, Brunei and Singapore tabled their initial offers at previous rounds). Offers remain outstanding from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Vietnam. Limited progress was made in narrowing differences on some of the outstanding issues in the draft chapter text.
The Experts Group on Intellectual Property (IP) met for the first time and made progress towards achieving agreement on a framework for taking IP issues forward. A consolidated draft text on IP was developed with a number of articles agreed in principle, including substantive articles on national treatment and government use of software.
Economic cooperation (EC) negotiations are now focussed on operationalising the draft EC chapter. Parties made good progress in developing the framework of the EC Work Program, and identifying possible projects for inclusion, in consultation with other Working/Expert Groups.
Considerable progress was made on a range of legal and institutional issues, including the dispute settlement text. Parties also agreed on a work plan for dealing with institutional and framework issues and legal verification of text.
The next meeting is scheduled to be held in March 2008.
More information on the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA