Preferential Trade Agreements and Trade Liberalization Efforts in the OIC Member States
With Special Emphasis on the TPS-OIC
103
containing trade and customs laws and procedures of all members. There is commitment of
reviews of identified NTMs on the fora a of several relevant ATIGA Committees and to agree
for the NTMs that should be removed. There are several trade facilitation provisions with a
commitment to ’develop and implement a comprehensive ASEAN Trade Facilitation Work
Programme, which sets out all concrete actions and measures with clear targets and time lines
of implementation’. In the area of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures the ASEAN Committee
on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures is meant to be the primary place for exchange of
information, to facilitate co-operation and to endeavour to resolve issues is they arise.
The ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) was signed in 1995 aiming at
establishment of free trade in services by 2020. Five successive negotiations round took place
under AFAS with eight packages of commitments. In 2007, ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)
Blueprint was adopted. While it did not include a specific agreement on services it provided
actions, targets and timeliness to achieve liberalisation of trade in services in the region. Four
priority sectors for services trade integration were selected: air travel, telecommunications
and IT services (e-ASEAN), healthcare and tourism.20
Table 15 suggests that ASEAN services commitments under AFAS, and in particular for the OIC
ASEAN members outweigh those contained in respective countries GATS schedules and/or
offered in the current Round of negotiations (DDA). However, the interpretation of this needs
to take into account the limitations of the underlying index. Also, it is very difficult to assess de
facto progress in implementation of the services commitments and existing anecdotal evidence
suggests only very limited progress.21
ASEAN-China
The negotiations on the ASEAN-China free trade agreement started in 2001 and the frame-
work agreement was signed the following year, just after China’s WTO accession.2230 The
Agreement on Trade in Goods was signed in 2004 and implemented in mid-2005. This has
become the world’s third largest FTA by trade volume after the European Economic Area and
the North American Free Trade Agreement (Lakatos and Walmslay, 2012). The trading bloc’s
population of some 1.7 billion exemplifies its global potential.
20 Logistics services were added to the list at a later stage
21For a more detailed discussion see CARIS (2011).
22 The section on ASEAN-China draws from the text of CARIS (2011) report for the European Commission DG
TRADE, Economic Integration in South East Asia and the Impact on the EU