Integration railroad in 7 Asean pacts

By Max de Leon
Reporter

THE integration of Asean economies moves a step forward in Cebu during the meeting of Asean economic ministers at the 12th Asean Summit in Cebu, with seven agreements supporting the blueprint for a fast-tracked integration by 2015 from the original 2020 they are submitting to the Asean leaders.
           
The centerpiece of the event is the expected signing of the Cebu Declaration on the Acceleration of the Asean Community by the year 2015, covering all the three legs—economic, political, and socio-cultural.
           
Asean leaders will also try to come up with a single and united stand to be presented to the World Trade Organization for the revival of the Doha talks.
           
Ramon Kabigting, director of the Bureau of International Trade Relations, said four of the ministerial documents to be signed pertain to intra-Asean trade, and the rest are on the Asean-China economic cooperation deal.
           
The first two documents are amendments to the Asean Framework Agreement for the Integration of Priority Sectors and the Asean Sectoral Integration Protocol for the Integration of Priority Sectors.
           
These are necessary to implement Phase II of the priority sectors for integration and include improvements of the existing measures, revised timelines for implementation, and inclusion of additional responsible bodies.
           
The third Intra-Asean economic agreement to be signed is the Protocol to Implement the 5th Package of the Commitments Under the Asean Framework Agreement on Services (Afas). The fourth is the Asean Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) on Nursing Services, an initiative supporting the Bali Concord II for the completion of the MRAs for qualifications in major professional services.
           
While the blueprint for accelerated economic integration is scheduled to be submitted to the Asean leaders, Kabigting said he is not aware if the blueprints for the integration of the two other legs—the political and sociocultural—are already finished and will also be submitted in the Cebu summit.
           
Among others, Kabigting said the economic integration blueprint includes the requests of the business sector for the resolution of the use of nontariff barriers so that the illegal ones will be identified, the Asean single-window that will benefit the exporters, the use of a simplified Customs Form D (which proves that a shipment complies with the required 40-percent Asean content), and clarification on the levels of allowable foreign equity, and services liberalization.
           
On the discussion for a united stand for the revival of the Doha talks, senior foreign affairs officials said over the weekend that President Arroyo would ask her counterparts from the nine other member countries to recommend ways to push for the resumption of the Doha negotiations.

The Doha talks collapsed in July this year after key economy-members, especially the United States, failed to agree on steps toward liberalizing trade in farm and manufactured goods. The European Union had solely blamed the US for the collapse of the 5-year talks because of its stern refusal to cut subsidy to its farmers. (With Rene Acosta)