APTA moves to make vast market

A number of recent decisions are expected to give a nudge to the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) to help create a vast market with tariff concessions for many products, officials said.
A standing-committee meeting on APTA, held late last week in Colombo, decided to form four working groups of experts by November and to hold meetings by March next year.
Two framework agreements on trade facilitation and investment were signed in December 2009, and the framework agreement on services was struck in August 2011.
Thereafter there had been no tangible progress on the pact during the intervening period of over six years, officials said.
The Colombo meeting also decided that new products -- numbering over 10,000 -- with tariff concessions following conclusion of fourth-round negotiations will come into effect from next January.
The outcome of conclusion of the fourth-round negotiations was supposed to get effect from July last but delay in completion of internal process by a couple of APTA-member states held it back.
Bangladesh, China, India, South Korea, Laos and Sri Lanka are members of the trade bloc.
Sources said the APTA standing committee would meet again next March in Bangkok for impact assessment of implementation of tariff concession on increased number of products.
The highest decision-making body of APTA -- Ministerial Council -- in its last meeting in Bangkok concluded the fourth round of negotiations with the aim of significant deepening of preferential tariff concessions among APTA states.
The meeting agreed that the APTA members will provide at least 33 per cent tariff concessions measured as an average of Margin of Preference (MOP) for all products covered, save in the case of least developed Participating States and Sri Lanka, who were granted greater flexibility in meeting these requirements.
Talking to the FE Monday additional secretary of the ministry of commerce Shafiqul Islam, who led the Bangladesh delegation in the Colombo meeting, said after several years the APTA was going to see a major progress.
"The outcome of the meeting was in line with the expectation of making the pact effective. We hope that from now on things will move forward in a positive manner," he said.
Mr Islam said a good number of experts will be needed to form the four joint-working groups.
"But, the challenge is we have significant shortage of suitable experts," he noted.
The regional pact offers simple and common Rules of Origin (RoO) with minimum local value-addition requirement of 45 per cent of the freight on board (FOB) value. The least- developed-country members of the bloc require 35 per cent value addition to enjoy the tariff preferences.
As one of the oldest preferential trade agreements between countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the APTA pact occupies a market of 2.921 billion people. The size of APTA market accounted for US$14,616 billion in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) in the fiscal year 2015-2016.
Its main objective is to accelerate economic development among the six participating states opting for trade-and investment-liberalisation measures which will contribute to the intra-regional trade.

syful-islam@outlook.com