ASEAN, HK SIGN TRADE, INVESTMENT DEALS
The free trade and investment deals signed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and Hong Kong echo a “loud and clear vote for freer and more open trade” in the face of rising protectionism, a top official said.
This is according to Edward Yau Tang-wah, Hong Kong’s secretary for commerce and economic development, during the signing ceremony of the Asean-Hong Kong, China Free Trade Agreement (AHKFTA) and the Asean-HK Investment Agreement.
The deals were signed by Asean and Hong Kong officials on the sidelines of the 31st Asean Summit and Related Meetings on Sunday afternoon.
“In the face of [protectionist] sentiments in other parts of the world, these two agreements are in fact a loud and clear vote from all of us here for freer and more open trade,” he said.
This comes as US President Donald Trump, whose elec- toral victory rode on the promise of protectionism, joins the East Asian Summit this week.
The Hong Kong top official said the deals, which he said consisted of 14 chapters spanning 4,000 pages, would bring forth “legal certainty, better market access, and fair and equitable trade and investment opportunities.”
Considered Asean’s sixth free trade agreement (FTA), AHKFTA marks the first trade deal signed by the bloc in nearly a decade. The five other FTA partners are China, South Korea, Japan, India and AustraliaNew Zealand.
According to a statement from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the FTA covers trade in goods, rules of origin, nontariff measures, customs procedures and trade facilitation, trade remedies, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, trade in services, intellectual property rights, and economic and technical cooperation.
Latest available Asean statistics showed that Hong Kong is the bloc’s seventhlargest trading partner, accounting for 4 percent of total trade in 2015. On the other hand, Asean was Hong Kong’s second-largest trading partner in the same year.
In the part of the Philippines, DTI said the deals would provide more opportunities for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as well as to the country’s export industries given Hong Kong’s role as “gateway” to the Chinese market.
Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) point to growing exports from the Philippines to the China’s Special Administrative Region.
Philippine exports reached $6.32 billion in the first nine months of the year, a 30.6 percent increase from the same period the year before. Hong Kong was the country’s third top export destination year-todate.
Philippine imports, on the other hand, climbed 5.8 percent from January to September this year to $1.94 billion. Hong Kong was the Philippines’ 11th import source, PSA data showed.