Hanoi: The ASEAN and China will
start the year 2010, merged into the largest free trade area
in the world, with 1,700 million consumers and billions of
dollars in merchandise volume.
Starting tomorrow, China and the 10 Association of
South EastAsian Nations (ASEAN) member countries will be out
in the world, in a plain competition with the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the European Union (EU).
Beijing and the ASEAN signed in November, 2002, an
initial free trade agreement and the process materialised nine
years later, after gradual tariff reduction that started in
2005 and different agreements about merchandise and services.
Those two first steps concluded in 2007 and they
signed an agreement on investments in August, 2009.
According to the plan, tariffs on 90 per cent of the
items marketed among China and Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand will be eliminated in
early 2010, while Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar will
join the mechanism in 2015.
Taxes on other items particularly important, as
textiles and electrical appliances, which are the remaining 10
percent, will be gradually reduced until they are totally
eliminated, covering around 7,000 item categories.
Regarding services, those rendered by ASEAN companies
will be favored by a preference regime in China and vice
versa, especially in the sphere of business and tourism.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, December 31, 2009, 18:19