by Zhai Jingsheng     

    JAKARTA, Sept. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Economic ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) finally agreed to beef up their commitment to push ahead the program of free trade and investment following a three-day meeting at the weekend in Jakarta.

    The 36th ASEAN Economic Ministers (ASEM) focused their consultations over opening up 11 "priority sectors," finally agreed on 10 sectors, but excluded the sector of air transportation temporarily.

    The 10 priority sectors include agriculture, fisheries, automotive, wood-based products, rubber-based products, textile and apparel, electronics, tourism, the ASEAN e-commerce and healthcare.

    The air transportation issue has been left for transportation ministers later this year and they are likely to meet for next step and also report to the coming 10th ASEAN summit in November this year.

    However, according to an Indonesian official from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the temporary exclusion of air transportation would expire by 2010.

    The 9th Summit of the ASEAN in Bali of Indonesia last year agreed to create the ASEAN Economic Community by 2020, the European Union-style regional grouping, where there would be a free flow of commodities, investment and labor in a larger region with some 530 million consumers market.

    The ASEAN Community would be built on the three main props, the ASEAN Economic Community, the ASEAN Security Community (ASC) and the ASEAN Social and Cultural Community (ASCC).

    The far-reaching program has been designed to spur trade withinthe region. Although the ASEAN countries kicked off their bid for the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992, the intraregional trade moved slowly. From the beginning of 2003, the trade tariff cut down below 5 percent in the region. As the economic growth warmed up, the ASEAN total export volume reached 430.39 billion US dollars in 2003, representing 12 percent increase over the previous year.

    At the same time, the intraregional trade totaled 94.7 billion dollars in 2003, also recording a 15.4 percent growth, but the intraregional trade volume up to now accounts for only some 22 percent of the region's total foreign trade, apparently far below some 75 percent within the European Union.

    The planned liberalization measures include cutting import tariffs under the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) facility, streamlining customs procedures and adopting unified products standards by 2007 for the six original members of Brunei,Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, and by 2012 for the four newcoming members of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

    During the meeting, the ASEAN economic ministers also discussed the trade disputes settlement mechanism, rules of origin and promotion of investment and held separate dialogues with ministers of China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union, the ASEAN's major trading partners. ASEAN has set targets to establish free trade areas with these countries. Enditem