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ASEAN Free Trade Area

Wikipedia short information

The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) is a trade bloc agreement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations supporting local manufacturing in all ASEAN countries.

The AFTA agreement was signed on 28 January 1992 in Singapore. When the AFTA agreement was originally signed, ASEAN had six members, namely, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Vietnam joined in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999. AFTA now comprises the ten countries of ASEAN. All the four latecomers were required to sign the AFTA agreement to join ASEAN, but were given longer time frames in which to meet AFTA's tariff reduction obligations.

The primary goals of AFTA seek to:

  • I
  • ncrease ASEAN's competitive edge as a production base in the world market through the elimination, within ASEAN, of tariffs and non-tariff barriers; and
  • Attract more foreign direct investment to ASEAN.

The primary mechanism for achieving such goals is the Common Effective Preferential Tariff scheme, which established a phased schedule in 1992 with the goal to increase the region’s competitive advantage as a production base geared for the world market.

Link: AFTA

Official Web-Site

 

AFTA map

 

Members, Observers and other participations

Full members Observers Special members
Brunei Australia  
Cambodia China  
Indonesia India  
Laos Japan  
Malaysia Korea South  
Myanmar / Burma New Zealand  
Philippines Papua New Guinea  
Singapore Russia  
Thailand Timor East  
Vietnam    

 

 

 

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