ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA
Subscriber Update
Update 21 – June 2008
Fifteenth Round of Negotiations
The 15th meeting of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) trade negotiating committee took place in Hanoi, Vietnam from 2 – 8 June 2008.
Negotiations are in their critical final phase. Most of the text of the Agreement is finalised with a handful of issues remaining to be resolved. The key outstanding issue is finalisation of market access negotiations and further intensive bilateral negotiations will follow in the weeks ahead.
On goods, policy differences remain on tariff modalities (the principles that will guide the preparation of detailed tariff offers), but intensive bilateral market access negotiations were held aimed at unblocking obstacles to reaching agreement in this area. The draft Chapters on Trade in Goods and on Safeguard Measures were substantially finalised with some minor issues remaining to be resolved.
The working group on rules of origin (ROO) made strong progress with the chapter text and the associated Operational Certification Procedures brought almost to conclusion. Only the issues of regional cumulation and the definition of party territory in the wholly obtained goods provision remain outstanding. Some work also remains in completing a small number of product-specific rules covering mainly chemicals and automotive products.
Considerable progress was made on the services chapter and sectoral texts on financial services and telecommunications. Intensive bilateral negotiations were held to advance market access interests.
The working group on investment also made good progress with the chapter text now close to finalisation. Finalisation of market access schedules has been deferred to an agreed forward work program.
The Economic cooperation component of the Agreement was concluded during the round. The Economic Cooperation Work Program, the chapter text and the Memorandum of Understanding covering the implementing arrangement were finalised. The Work Program provides a mechanism for assisting countries to implement their AANZFTA commitments and realise the opportunities it presents.
Negotiations on legal and institutional issues are very close to finalisation, with the chapter on the dispute settlement mechanism and the institutional and framework texts largely completed.
Government Procurement remains a very difficult issue, but ASEAN submitted a counter-proposal to ANZ’s draft text on Competition Cooperation. This proposal formed the basis of negotiations which resulted in an acceptable text on Competition.
More information on the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA