With a little under a year to go before the planned Southeast Asian economic integration, the government and the private sector will conduct more dialogues to reduce non-tariff barriers to regional trade, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said in a statement on Friday.

“Over the past two decades, tariffs across ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) have been gradually decreasing. Since 2010, most of the import duties in ASEAN have been at 0%. Having addressed these tariff issues, the focus now is to tackle non-tariff barriers that impede inter-ASEAN trade,” DTI Undersecretary Adrian S. Cristobal, Jr. said in the statement.

Non-tariff barriers may include import quotas, product standards, and licensing requirements, among others.

The DTI said Mr. Cristobal, together with officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs, met with representatives of the business community last week to discuss how to further prepare for the ASEAN Economic Community 2015.

ASEAN -- which groups the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar -- aims to transform the region into a single market and production hub where goods, services, capital, and skilled labor move freely.

The statement said that import duties -- considered a tariff barrier -- on 99.65% of trade tariff lines have been eliminated among the first six ASEAN member states: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

The remaining ASEAN members, on the other hand, have had 98.86% of their traded tariff lines reduced to 0-5%.

Almost all duties have also been eliminated on agricultural and industrial products, the DTI noted.

The statement also said that the Philippines will push for regional economic integration, mainstreaming SMEs, food security and inclusive growth, among others, in next year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Manila.

Given this background, Mr. Cristobal said: “We need to define our trade and economic interests in the Asia Pacific region and ASEAN, as well.

“It is through sustained and constructive engagements with the private sector that will help us in identifying areas of concern in the ASEAN and APEC economies. Both are our markets for exports, raw materials, and intermediate goods as well as a source and destination of investments,” he added.

The forum’s participants, the statement said, agreed to continue the dialogue among government and business through more frequent and focused discussions in areas such as energy, services, SMEs, emergency preparedness, food security, and connectivity and logistics. 

Source: bworldonline.com

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