Cooperation in Trade and Tourism
( COTT)
The ASEAN Economic Ministers at their 17th
Meeting in February 1985, agreed that the
Committee on Trade and Tourism (COTT) should
study new initiatives/measures to promote greater
intra-ASEAN trade. Subsequently, COTT at its
19th Meeting in April 1985 proposed the
following:
(i) To effectively reduce the Exclusion
Lists, member countries will categorise
their respective Exclusion Lists into
Non-Sensitive Lists, Semi Sensitive Lists
and Sensitive Lists. The Non-Sensitive
Lists will be withdrawn; the Semi Sensitive
Lists will be withdrawn through
negotiations, and only the Sensitive Lists
will remain.
(ii) To introduce an ASEAN Tariff Quota
Scheme on a product-by-product basis
for products in the remaining Exclusion
Lists, through bilateral negotiations' and
(iii) To introduce a Special Quota for
ASEAN products which are under quantitative
restriction.
Recognizing the need for a study to identify
the direction and goal of the ASEAN trade cooperation
and the coordination of efforts in the
areas of trade, industry and trade-related services
that are necessary for the dynamic growth of
ASEAN trade cooperation, member countries
proposed the setting-up of a task force for this
study.
To further improve intra-ASEAN trade,
member countries had, during the year, taken the
following action:
(i) Exchanging lists of products sourced
under long term contracts from non-
ASEAN sources with the view to switching
such Imports from ASEAN sources;
(ii) Exchanging lists of nonon-tariff measures
being practised in the member countries
with the view to reducing such measures
through negotiations;
(iii) Identifying products under the food and
tyre sectors with the view to extending
tariff preferences on a sectoral basis for
products under the food and tyre sectors.
Other sectors would also be considered.
(iv) Providing duty-free import treatment for
furniture display 'and sale at the ASEAN
Furniture Fair subject to certain levels of
quantity or value of products imported
for such purposes. The date for implementation
would be fixed in due course.
(v) Rounding up of items with 33%, 35% or
45% Margin of Preference (MOP) already
under the PTA to MOP of 40% or 50%.
International Economic Issues
On trade and economic relations with third
countries and international organizations, ASEAN
member countries continued to take an active part
and adopted a common ASEAN position on issues
of direct interest to ASEAN.
On the proposed New Round of Multilateral
Trade Negotiations, ASEAN Economic Ministers at
their 17th Meeting in February 1985 reaffirmed
that ASEAN would actively support the New
Round and that developed countries should fulfill
their past commitments made at the Tokyo Round
and the GATT Work Programme of 1982.
ASEAN would also ensure that developed
countries extend, during the New Round, concessions
to ASEAN countries on trade issues such as
tropical products, the GATT Code on Counter-
Vailing Duties (CVD) and the Multi-Fibre Agreement
(MFA), agricultural products, tariff escalation
and natural resource-based products.
On international commodity issues, ASEAN's
foremost concerns were market instability, low and
declining prices and tariffs and non-tariff barriers
which had adversely affected the ASEAN
economies. In view of these, ASEAN continued to
urge the developed countries to give the necessary
impetus to implement the elements of the
UNCTAD Integrated Programme for Commodities
and the Common Fund. The objective was to
achieve stability as well as to avoid excessive
fluctuations in commodity prices which would be
remunerative and just to producers and equitable
to consumers.
ASEAN had also requested developed
countries to play more constructive roles in the re-
negotiations of such commodity agreements as the
International Natural Rubber Agreement (INRA)
and International 'Tin Agreement (ITA) to make
them more effective, encourage greater
downstream processing of primary commodities
within the ASEAN producing countries and
promote closer collaboration in research and development
in the primary commodities.
ASEAN submitted a memorandum to the
industrialized countries for their Bonn Summit in
May 1985 drawing their attention to the inter-
national economic problems faced by developing
countries including ASEAN countries particularly
on the need to reduce protectionism and
strengthen GATT free trading system, international
debt problems and commodity problems.
Tourism
The Sub-Committee on Tourism (SCOT) at its
15th Meeting in Bangkok, 9 - 11 April 1985
agreed to establish an ASEAN Tourism Information
Centre (ATIC). The Centre would be headed
by an Executive Director. It would undertake
centralized tourism data compilation, coordination
of SCOT's marketing and research programmes and
liaison with other international tourism organizations.
The Meeting also agreed to set up an ASEAN
Promotional Chapter in Hongkong. A similar
Promotional Chapter in Singapore was also
considered. Presently SCOT has 5 Promotional
Chapters with offices in Tokyo, San Francisco,
Sidney, London and Frankfurt.
The annual ASEAN Tourism Forum 85 was
held in Bangkok in April 1985. More than 700
participants representing various sectors of the
tourist industry in the 6 ASEAN countries and 36
non-ASEAN countries took part in the 4-day
forum to transact business and establish contacts.
For more information, please refer to project details