White, III, Note, From Snowplows to Siopao--Trying to Compete in a Global Marketplace: The
ASEAN Free Trade Area, 8 TULSA J.
Tan Sri Dato' Dr Lau Ban Tin, director of BIG Industries Bhd, told Malaysian businesses to react to the slowdown and to the future challenges of globalisation, the advent of the
ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
But Japanese firms, mainly in the general machinery and automotive sectors, are showing strong interest in investing in ASEAN as the group is moving toward the formation of an
ASEAN Free Trade Area by 2002, it said.
"To meet the economic challenge of China's attractiveness to foreign investments, the ASEAN countries will have to combine their markets in an
ASEAN free trade area," Lee said.
One of these steps is to hasten the reduction of `exclusion lists' for the
ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA).
ASEAN Free Trade Area, APEC, and the WTO: How They Fit Together
Already the six ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries have signed the
ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) plan, which calls for a mutually supportive economic zone encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Brunei Darussalam.
Under the
Asean Free Trade Area (Afta), the trade in cement is subject to zero tariff and duties.
In fact, they were introduced many decades ago, including preferential trade agreements like the
ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA, 1992) and other forms of economic cooperation such as the ASEAN Industrial Joint Venture (AIJV, 1983), Brand-to-Brand Complementary (BBC, 1988) and the ASEAN Industrial Cooperation (AICO, 1996).
By the time, the
ASEAN free trade area initiative was being proposed, the Philippines was already ready: we had slashed tariff rates down (and not just for ASEAN trade, but for all trade); and since the era of zero tariffs for intra-ASEAN trade was still some distance off, this was a step that would be relatively easy to take in time.
Moreover, apart from domestic taxes, revenue growth may slow over time with the contribution of trade taxes in total revenue set to decline with
ASEAN Free trade Area implementation.
