This week the
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and UNCTAD launched
a website that compiles data on non-tariff measures (NTMs) in the ASEAN
Economic Community (AEC). NTMs include sanitary and phyto-sanitary
standards (SPS), technical barriers to trade (TBT), import and export
licensing, export restrictions, customs surcharges, anti-dumping and safeguard
measures, and other measures which trade in goods. The website, which adopts WTO reporting and
classification methodologies, is available here.
The
website is a much needed addition to the administration and implementation of
the AEC. As I wrote earlier,
NTMs which actually operate as non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade in goods
will frustrate the progress made by eliminating tariffs on intra-ASEAN trade. Using the ERIA and UNCTAD instead of the
ASEAN Secretariat perhaps is inconsistent with the goal of strengthening the
ASEAN institutions, but it is consistent with ASEAN’s institutional
improvisation and if it enhances trade liberalization in the AEC, then so much
the better.
However,
there are a few questions which are not resolved by this new initiative.
First,
the database is limited to “each country's official sources of trade
regulations”. That
means that NTMs/NTBs which are not published in the form of
legislation or regulation will not be in the database, which is
unfortunate. Many NTMs/NTBs are not published,
and implemented either informally through non-objective application of
procedures by government agencies or through non-published (but written)
directives by ASEAN member states such as private rulings or no-objection
letters. In short, the database covers de jure measures but not de facto measures, and then only to the
extent that these measures had been self-reported by ASEAN member governments (and
which reporting was not subject to potential sanctions from an ASEAN
institution like the ASEAN Secretariat).
Second,
how will this database be updated? ERIA
and UNCTAD indicate that they are conducting a qualitative study of how NTMs
affect the regional economy, and that this project will be extended to cover
the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
(RCEP) countries who are not in ASEAN (e.g., Australia-New Zealand,
China, India, Japan and Korea). Both steps will be very useful, but the entire
process should be augmented by imposing a continuing (and binding, with
potential sanctions if possible) obligation on the ASEAN member states to
update the database on a regular basis.
Finally,
the most important question is what will be done with this information. Chapter 4 of the ASEAN Trade in Goods
Agreement (ATIGA) already commits the ASEAN member states to eliminate NTMs
which actually operate as NTBs. Will the
member states use this database as the basis for discussions/negotiations to
eliminate the NTBs? Will dispute
resolution be necessary? Will the ASEAN
member states require prodding from the private sector to do any of this?
The
ERIA-UNCTAD database is a good, solid step in the development of the single
production base and single market in ASEAN. Hopefully ASEAN will incorporate and expand
upon this step by broadening its coverage and deepening the understanding and
usage of its underlying data to support the AEC.
