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Asean accord

on tariff rebates

SINGAPORE: Trade Ministers of the seven-nation Asean grouping signed an agreement here on Saturday allowing companies in the region to manufacture products that will enjoy tariff rebates, officials said.

The products would enjoy zero to five percent tariffs under the pact for the Asean Industrial Cooperation (AICO) scheme, they said.

Malaysia's international trade and industry minister Rafidah Aziz said the scheme would be implemented in two or three months after the agreement was ratified by the ASEAN governments.

The agreement provides the framework for industrial cooperation within Asean, she told reporters before the pact was signed by the ministers at Singapore's island resourt of Sentosa.

Analysts say that while Singapore is virtually a free trade economy, the average tariff level in the other major Asean economies is more than 15 percent.

ASEAN, consisting of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, is already implementing a scheme to create a free trade area by 2003.

By then most products to be traded within the ASEAN Free Trade Area (Afta) will have tariffs of zero to five percent.-AFP