The tariff reduction process to facilitate the establishment of the free trade area (FTA) is being moved along swiftly by China and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said a senior foreign trade official yesterday in Beijing.

China's average tariff on goods from ASEAN countries was cut from 9.9 percent to 8.1 percent last year and will drop to 6.6 percent in 2007, said Yin Zonghua, deputy director with the Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Commerce.

The average tariff level would continue to drop to 2.4 percent in 2009 and finally in 2010, which is the scheduled point for the establishment of the China-ASEAN FTA, 93 percent of products from ASEAN countries will be tariff-free, according to Yin.

Yin revealed the tariff reduction plan at the third China-ASEAN FTA Seminar which was organized by the ASEAN Committee in Beijing and the China-ASEAN Business Council. ASEAN countries have also made similar arrangements, said Yin, citing Thailand as an example.

Thailand reduced its average tariff for Chinese products from 12.9 percent to 10.7 percent last year while it plans to further lower it to 2.8 percent in 2009, explained Yin. "The practice shows that tariff reduction has boosted trade remarkably between China and ASEAN," said Yin.

Official statistics show that China's trade with ASEAN totaled US$130.4 billion last year with imports valued at US$75 billion and exports at US$55.4 billion.

In the first eight months of this year China imported US$56 billion of ASEAN products and exported US$44.9 billion. Total trade with ASEAN this year is expected to surpass US$150 billion, said Yin. Both China and ASEAN would benefit from the tariff reductions and they’d achieve win-win results from the FTA, he noted.

China's former Premier Zhu Rongji proposed the establishment of a China-ASEAN FTA in November 2000 and it was approved the following year. In November 2002 the Framework Agreement on China-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Cooperation was signed by leaders and set the ball rolling on the FTA.

By 2010 China will establish FTAs with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand while Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar will go through a five-year transitional period.  

In addition to promoting the development of trade in goods, China and ASEAN will also speed up negotiations on service trade and investment so as to construct the FTA in a comprehensive way, according to Yin.

Bambang Khaeroni, trade attache with the Indonesia Embassy in China, said that cooperation between China and ASEAN "has been working dynamically." Indonesia had long been involved in regional cooperation initiatives such as ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, said Khaeroni.

"These experiences can be useful in promoting strategic cooperation between China and ASEAN through China-Indonesia bilateral cooperation," he noted. He displayed enthusiasm towards promoting the establishment of the FTA.

(China Daily October 11, 2006)