ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA
Subscriber Update
Update 19 – April 2008
Fourteenth Round of Negotiations
The 14th meeting of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) trade negotiating committee took place in Brisbane from 21 – 26 April 2008.
Negotiations are in their final phase. All parties are now focussed on finalising negotiations by August 2008. Good progress was made in finalising the text of the Agreement, with the Intellectual Property Chapter finalised. Negotiations are now concentrating on market access issues.
On goods, policy differences remain on tariff modalities (the principles that will guide the preparation of detailed tariff offers). An intensive bilateral market access negotiating process is underway aimed at unblocking obstacles to reaching agreement in this area. Significant progress was made in finalising the draft Chapter on Trade in Goods and there was considerable discussion on the draft Chapter on Safeguard Measures.
The working group on rules of origin (ROO) made some progress towards finalising the chapter text and associated Operational Certification Procedures. However, significant detailed work remains in completing product-specific rules in sensitive sectors including chemicals, textiles and clothing, iron and steel and automotive products.
Negotiations on services were marked by increased engagement on draft texts on financial services, e-commerce, telecommunications and movement of natural persons. Steady progress was also made on the draft chapter text on Trade in Services. Negotiations on market access issues remain difficult despite an intensive bilateral process aimed at improving ASEAN offers.
Negotiations on investment made useful progress particularly on certain post-establishment investment protections, such as the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions, the expropriation article and the annex on indirect expropriation. However, there remain some differences in a number of areas, including those affecting the scope and coverage of the agreement. Cambodia, Burma and Thailand tabled their initial indicative offers and Vietnam and Laos have undertaken to table theirs before the next round.
Economic cooperation negotiations continue to focus on operationalising the draft chapter on Economic Cooperation. Parties agreed to update the draft chapter text and implementing arrangements. Work progressed on prioritising project proposals in the draft work program provided by the Design Support Team. It was agreed that high priority proposals will take precedence over medium and low in the new draft work program.
Considerable progress was made on a range of legal and institutional issues, with the dispute settlement mechanism now substantially completed. Parties are now moving towards common positions on institutional and framework texts.
The next meeting is scheduled to be held in Hanoi from 2 – 8 June 2008.
More information on the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA