Asean trade in services pushed
2010-07-19

AN official of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) said members need to harmonize policies on services to effectively help in establishing a single market economy by 2015 and make the region an investment haven.

Director for Market Integration Subash Bose Pillai of the Asean economic community department said the services sector has been driving the economic growth in most of the Asean members since it developed its own liberalization policy parallel to the approach of the World Trade Organization.

He said the overall share of the services sector to the gross domestic product of the Asean economy was 45.9 percent and Asean’s share of the global trade in commercial services reached 5 percent of the global total of $343 billion in 2009, surpassing the share of the economic giants BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China).

The Asean official led the workshop for trade officials from member-countries to discuss current and future negotiating issues in international trade. They also tackled the Asean Framework Agreement on Services, the Asean Mutual Recognition Agreement, and the General Agreement on Trade in Services of the WTO.

“With the surging importance of the services sector in Asean, it is imperative that the capacity of officers both at Asean member-countries, [the] secretariat, and the private sector be enhanced—thus the holding of this very important workshop to put Asean on the right footing,” said Pillai during the workshop.

Pillai said the services sector is also key to establishing a single market economy since it continues to attract foreign direct investments (FDI). He said the sector accounted for more than half the total FDI inflows into Asean.

He said the free flow of services is integral to Asean economic integration. “Asean has drawn up a services liberalization road map under the Asean Economic Community Blueprint that has targets and timelines for services liberalization toward 2015.”

Asean services liberalization is a progressive exercise and some flexibility is allowed to take into account differing situations, he said, adding that liberalization of the services sector would attract rich economies in forging free-trade agreements with the bloc, just as such liberalization of services is important in the FTAs with Asean’s dialogue partners China, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

“Asean is currently negotiating separate services agreements with India and Japan. These agreements are important to Asean because they open up the services markets of dialogue partners, as well as allow us to benefit from greater investment flows that will enhance the delivery of services and the development of the sector,” said Pillai.

Asean groups the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, Brunei and Burma/Myanmar.

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27899:asean-trade-in-services-pushed&catid=23:topnews&Itemid=58

Author: Estrella Torres
Source: Business Mirror
Date Published : 2010-07-28

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