A free trade agreement between six Southeast Asian countries and China should take effect in mid-2005, a Thai Commerce Ministry source said on Monday, the third proposed starting date for the already delayed deal. Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei, the six richest members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), will ink the deal with Beijing at a summit in Vientiane, Laos at the end of November, the source said.
Under the agreement, the two sides would start cutting tariffs on July 1, 2005. Around 4,000 tariff categories would be cut to between zero and 5 percent by 2010, the Thai source said.
Tariffs on "sensitive goods", such as sugar and manufactured goods, would be cut to below 20 percent by 2012. The list of such goods for each country should not exceed 400 items, the source said.
The original deadline of June 30 this year was missed as ASEAN countries wanted more time to cut tariffs on sensitive items.
In September, senior Thai negotiator Pisanu Rienmahasarn told Reuters the deal was expected to be implemented from January 2005, with some 90 percent of 5,000 tariff categories being cut. That deal was also to be signed at the ASEAN summit in Vientiane.
The free trade agreement would come into force for ASEAN's other, poorer members Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in 2015, consistent with the original timetable.
ASEAN, which has annual trade within the group of $720 billion, agreed to start talks on a free trade pact with China in November 2001.