China and 10 ASEAN members are speeding up the tariff reduction
process to facilitate establishment of the free trade area, said a senior
foreign trade official yesterday in Beijing.
China's average tariff on ASEAN countries' goods was slashed from 9.9 percent
to 8.1 percent last year, while the ratio will drop to 6.6 percent next year,
said Yin Zonghua, deputy director with the Department of International Trade and
Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Commerce.
The average tariff level will continue to drop to 2.4 percent in 2009, and
finally in 2010, which is the scheduled time for the establishment of the
China-ASEAN FTA, 93 percent of products from ASEAN countries will be
tariff-free, according to Yin.
Yin disclosed the tariff reduction plan at the third China-ASEAN FTA Seminar,
which was organized by the ASEAN Committee in Beijing and the China-ASEAN
Business Council.
ASEAN countries have also made similar arrangements, said Yin, citing
Thailand as the example.
Thailand reduced its average tariff for Chinese products from 12.9 percent to
10.7 percent last year, while it plans to further lower it to 2.8 percent in
2009, according to Yin.
"The practice shows that tariff reduction has remarkably boosted trade
between China and ASEAN," said Yin.
Official statistics show that China's trade with ASEAN totalled 130.4 billion
U.S. dollars last year, with imports valued at 75 billion dollars and exports at
55.4 billion dollars.
In the first eight months of this year, China imported 56 billion dollars of
products from ASEAN and exported 44.9 billion dollars. And the total trade with
ASEAN this year is expected to surpass 150 billion dollars, according to Yin.
Both China and ASEAN benefit from the tariff reduction practice and they will
achieve win-win results from the FTA, he noted.
China's then Premier Zhu Rongji proposed the establishment of China-ASEAN FTA
in November 2000 and it was approved by leaders next year.
In November 2002, the leaders signed the Framework
Agreement on China-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Cooperation, and set the ball
rolling on the FTA.
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