Taking ASEAN+1 FTAs towards the RCEP

Transcription

1 Taking ASEAN+1 FTAs towards the RCEP Ikumo Isono Economist Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) October 30, 2013, S.C. Tsiang Memorial Hall, CIER, Taipei

2 What is RCEP? New FTA negotiation among the ASEAN+6 countries. o ASEAN10, Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand Negotiation starts in Conclusion in 2015, as an ambitious goal. Three official documents have been issued: o ASEAN Framework for Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (November 2011) o Guiding Principles and Objectives for Negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (August 2012) o Joint Declaration on the Launch of Negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (November 2012) 2

3 1. WTO consistency 8 Principles of RCEP 2. Significant improvements over the existing ASEAN+1 FTAs 3. Facilitation of trade and investment and transparency enhancement 4. Consideration of the different levels of development (e.g., special and differential treatment) 5. Continued existence of the ASEAN+1 FTAs 6. Open accession 7. Technical assistance and capacity building 8. Comprehensiveness (parallel negotiation of trade in goods, trade in services, investment and other areas) 3

4 RCEP Guiding Principles and Objective The objective of launching RCEP negotiations is to achieve a modern, comprehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial economic partnership agreement among the ASEAN Member States and ASEAN s FTA Partners. Principle 2: Significant improvements over the existing ASEAN+1 FTAs 4

5 Why we want RCEP? RCEP can Economic Reasons 1. Deepen the liberalization commitments (goods, services and ROO); 2. Ease the noodle-bowl situation (not only in ROO but huge number of tariff schedules, and different rules) and thus enhance the utilization of FTA; 3. Further ease the use of FTAs via accumulation ; 4. Deepen economic cooperation for facilitation measures; and, 5. Prevent the potential loss from competing initiatives (e.g., CJK FTA). + Political Reason for ASEAN 1. Maintain and strengthen the ASEAN Centrality (politically) under the pressure from TPP and CJK. 5

6 Tariff Elimination (1) All the ASEAN+1 FTAs (except AIFTA) provide higher than 90% tariff elimination. Yet, there are room for improvement when it comes to country-specific. AANZFTA ACFTA AIFTA AJCEP AKFTA Average BRN 99.2% 98.3% 85.3% 97.7% 99.2% 95.9% CAM 89.1% 89.9% 88.4% 85.7% 97.1% 90.0% IDN 93.7% 92.3% 48.7% 91.2% 91.2% 83.4% LAO 91.9% 97.6% 80.1% 86.9% 90.0% 89.3% MLS 97.4% 93.4% 79.8% 94.1% 95.5% 92.0% MYA 88.1% 94.5% 76.6% 85.2% 92.2% 87.3% PHI 95.1% 93.0% 80.9% 97.4% 99.0% 93.1% SGP 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% THA 98.9% 93.5% 78.1% 96.8% 95.6% 92.6% VTN 94.8% n.a. 79.5% 94.4% 89.4% 89.5% AUS 100.0% CHN 94.1% IND 78.8% JPN 91.9% KOR 90.5% NZ 100.0% Average 95.7% 94.7% 79.6% 92.8% 94.5% Notes: HS2007 version, HS 6-digit base. Data on Viet Nam under the ASEAN-China are missing. Data on Myanmar under the ASEAN-China FTA are also missing for HS01-HS08. Source: ERIA FTA Mapping Study 6

7 Tariff Elimination (2) Common concession is a key feature in the ASEAN+1 FTAs. (a) common concession --- e.g., Indonesia has single tariff schedules giving the same preferences to all the RCEP members. (b) non-common concession --- e.g., Indonesia gives different preferences to RCEP members (max. 15 different tariff schedules). Common concession will bring additional liberalization even if the level of ambition remains the same (e.g., 90%). Thus, ASEAN can gain additional liberalization even though it has FTAs with all the RCEP members. 7

8 Tariff Elimination (3) ASEAN countries have opened up 99.1% of products to at least one FTA Partner. ASEAN needs to streamline their commitment / protection in order to realize a regional FTA with common concession. % of "eliminated to all" products % of "depends on FTA" products % of "protected to all" products Brunei Cambodia Indonesia Lao PDR Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand Viet Nam Average Note: Based on HS2007 version, HS 6-digit base. Data on Viet Nam under the ASEAN-China FTA are missing. Data on Myanmar under the ASEAN-China FTA are also missing for HS01-HS08. Source: ERIA FTA Mapping Study 8

9 Rules of Origin Differences exist in ROO which may create noodle-bowl effects. Most common ROO is RVC40 or CTH. HS ATIGA AANZFTA ACFTA AIFTA AJCEP AKFTA 1-5 ATIGA AANZFTA ACFTA AIFTA AJCEP AKFTA RVC(40) or CTH or more flexible RVC Others Note: co-equal rules give more options for business. Source: ERIA FTA Mapping Study

10 Services Liberalization Some ASEAN+1 FTAs provide only minimal WTO plus contents. AFAS(7) AANZFTA ACFTA (2) AKFTA Total WTO+ Total WTO+ Total WTO+ Total WTO+ Brunei Cambodia Indonesia Laos 0.34 NA 0.24 NA 0.04 NA 0.07 NA Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand NA NA Vietnam ASEAN Average Australia New Zealand China Korea Notes: The higher the figure, the more liberal commitments are (min. 0; max. 1). AFAS is based on the 7 th package. ACFTA is based on the 2 nd Package. Source: ERIA FTA Mapping Study 10

11 Potential Economic Impact on GDP of RCEP (Percentage Point, accumulated from 2011 to 2015) RCEP will have the largest positive economic impacts on ASEAN ASEAN Coexistence of Five ASEAN+1 FTAs Coexistence of Five ASEAN+1 FTAs and CJK FTA ASEAN+6 FTA (RCEP) Note: Percentage Point, Accumulated from 2011 to Assumptions are: (a) complete elimination of the tariffs over the specified period of time, (b) reduction of ad valorem equivalents of service trade barriers, and (c) improvements in logistics cutting the ad valorem time. Source: Itakura for ERIA s AEC Mid-term Review Study 11

12 How can we maximize the economic gains? Trade in Goods Common concession in tariff schedules: common in A+1 FTA Consolidated ROOs with co-equal rules Cumulation rules: common in A+1 FTA Higher level of tariff elimination, e.g., 95% Trade in Services Substantive WTO Plus components (more than A+1 FTAs) Trade Facilitation Meaningful programs (many in ASEAN; but rare in A+1 FTAs) Speed Speedy conclusion the key for ASEAN Centrality 12

13 Some more potential implications 1. RCEP and TPP: Can we converge the two towards an FTAAP? Which one is higher quality? (common tariff schedule and liberal ROOs?) 2. Expansion of ASEAN++ agreements in non-trade economic areas? 3. RCEP Secretariat? Implication to the ASEAN Secretariat? 4. Open accession in RCEP. Who may join? What are the conditions? 13

14 Thank You for Your Kind Attention!