Association of Southeast Asian

Nations
 AIMS AND PURPOSES
• To accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural
development in the region through joint endeavours in the spirit of
equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a
prosperous and peaceful community of Southeast Asian Nations;

• To promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for

justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries of the
region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter;

• To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of

common interest in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific
and administrative fields;
 AIMS AND PURPOSES
• To provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research
facilities in the educational, professional, technical and administrative
spheres;

• To collaborate more effectively for the greater utilisation of their

agriculture and industries, the expansion of their trade, including the
study of the problems of international commodity trade, the
improvement of their transportation and communications facilities and
the raising of the living standards of their peoples;

• To promote Southeast Asian studies; and

• To maintain close and beneficial cooperation with existing international

and regional organisations with similar aims and purposes, and explore
all avenues for even closer cooperation among themselves.
 Economic Integration Through ASEAN

• AFTA
• Dispute settlements
• Economic relations
• Telecommunications and IT
• Investment
• Intellectual property
• Tourism and transport
 ASEAN Free Trade Areas (AFTA)

• ASEAN Member Countries have made significant

progress in the lowering of intra-regional tariffs
through the Common Effective Preferential Tariff
(CEPT) Scheme for AFTA. More than 99 percent of
the products in the CEPT Inclusion List (IL) of ASEAN-
6, comprising Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand,
have been brought down to the 0-5 percent tariff
range.
ASEAN Member Countries

• have resolved to work on the elimination of non-tariff

barriers. A work programme on the elimination of
non-tariff barriers, which includes, among others, the
process of verification and cross-notification; are
updating the working definition of Non-Tariff
Measures (NTMs)/Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) in
ASEAN;

• Are thinking about the eventual elimination of

unnecessary and unjustifiable non-tariff measures
which is currently being finalized.
• revised CEPT Rules of Origin and Operational Certification
Procedures include: (a) a standardized method of calculating
local/ASEAN content;

• (b) a set of principles for determining the cost of ASEAN origin

and the guidelines for costing methodologies;

• (c) treatment of locally-procured materials; and

• (d) improved verification process, including on-site

verification.
 Growth of Thailand
• Thailand’s total trade value with Asean skyrocketed 52 per
cent to US$17.63 billion in the first quarter of 2010. Of the
total, exports accounted for $10.52 billion, up 67.3 per cent
while imports amounted to $7.11 billion, a 33.88 per cent
increase, yielding a trade surplus of $3.4 billion.

• Thailand’s exports within ASEAN in the first quarter of 2010

have increased by 67.3% year-on-year, owing to the ASEAN
Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) enforced at the beginning of the
year.

• Thailand’s exports to Asean have already exceeded the

traditional top three markets -European Union (11.7 per
cent), Japan (10.3 per cent) and the US (10 per cent).
 Free Trade Areas
      
• ASEAN - Australia New Zealand Free Trade Area

      
• ASEAN - China Free Trade Area

      
• ASEAN - India Free Trade Area

      
• ASEAN - Japan Free Trade Area

      
• ASEAN - Republic of Korea Free Trade Area
 ASEAN - India Free Trade Area

• Between 1993 and 2003, ASEAN-India bilateral trade grew at an annual rate of
11.2%, from US$ 2.9 billion in 1993 to US$ 12.1 billion in 2003.

• In 2008, the total volume of ASEAN-India trade was US$ 47.5 billion. ASEAN’s
export to India was US$ 30.1 billion – a growth of 21.1 per cent in comparison
with that of 2007. ASEAN’s imports from India were US$ 17.4 billion – a growth of
40.2 per cent in comparison to that of 2006. As for foreign direct investment
(FDI), the inflow from India to ASEAN Member States was US$ 476.8 million in
2008, accounting for 0.8 per cent of total FDI in the region. Total Indian FDI into
ASEAN from 2000 to 2008 was US$ 1.3 billion.

• Acknowledging this trend and recognising the economic potential of closer

linkages, both sides recognised the opportunities for deepening trade and
investment ties, and agreed to negotiate a framework agreement to pave the way
for the establishment of an ASEAN-India Free Trade Area (FTA).
• At the Second ASEAN-India Summit in 2003, the ASEAN-India
Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation
was signed by the Leaders of ASEAN and India. The Framework
Agreement laid a sound basis for the eventual establishment of
an ASEAN-India Regional Trade and Investment Area (RTIA),
which includes FTA in goods, services, and investment.

• ASEAN and India signed the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods (TIG)

Agreement in Bangkok on 13 August 2009. The ASEAN-India TIG
Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2010. The ASEAN-
India FTA will see tariff liberalisation of over 90 percent of
products traded between the two dynamic regions, including the
so-called “special products,” such as palm oil (crude and refined),
coffee, black tea and pepper. Tariffs on over 4,000 product lines
will be eliminated by 2016, at the earliest.