Media release

Australian Minister for Trade, Mark Vaile

Friday, 6 October, 2000

New phase in Australia's relations with South East Asia

Australia has taken an important step towards closer economic integration with South East Asia.

"Ministers agreed to work towards a Closer Economic Partnership (CEP) linking the ten ASEAN countries, Australia and New Zealand", Trade Minister Mark Vaile said today. Mr Vaile was speaking following the meeting of Ministers from the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (CER) in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Ministers considered the High-Level AFTA-CER Free Trade Area Task Force report which recommends that Ministers take steps towards free and open trade in the region at the earliest possible time.

"We agreed to sustain the momentum generated by the Task Force report and have now tasked officials to draw upon its conclusions to develop recommendations on a CEP linking the two regions", Mr Vaile said.

"Officials will report back at the next Ministerial consultations in 2001 and then Ministers will decide how to proceed."

"The decision to move to the next stage builds on five years of work on trade facilitation and economic cooperation, and keeps a focus on free and open trade in the region. It has moved what was a non-government process to a government-to-govemment level. "

Chairman of the High Level Task Force, Mr Cesar Virata presented The AngkorAgenda report at the annual consultations between the ASEAN Economic Ministers and Ministers of CER. The report highlighted that an AFTA-CER FTA would enlarge the regional market to double its current size through a combined GDP of around $US 1 trillion.

Australian exports to ASEAN were worth $A 11.3 billion in 1999 and have grown at a rate of over 8 per cent per annurn since 1993.

Local Date: Thursday, 20-Nov-2008 23:21:32 EST