Asean Goals

Since Australia’s first free trade agreement (FTA) with New Zealand in 1983, Bilateral and Multilateral FTA’s have been a great advantage and focus in securing economic prosperity for Australia. Australia’s two-way trade in goods and services was A$616 bn in 2012. Australia has seven FTAs currently in force with New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, US, Chile, ASEAN (with New Zealand) and Malaysia. Together, these countries account for 28% of Australia’s total trade, which displays the great benefit of bilateral FTAs to the Australian economy. Additionally, there are four bilateral FTA negotiations currently in place, two of which are substantial trading partners; China, being Australia’s largest export market (A$78.7 bn) and Japan, being Australia’s second largest export market (A$49.8 bn). The Japanese Free Trade Agreement has been negotiated, and will be a great benefit to the Australian economy, especially the agricultural sector, for example tariffs on beef

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a forum for 21 Pacific Rim economies. APEC members are described as ‘economies’ because the APEC cooperative process is predominantly concerned with trade and economic issues, with members engaging with one another as economic entities. APEC promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region. It was established in 1989 in response to the growing interdependence of Asia-Pacific economies and the advent of regional trade blocs in other parts of the world; to fears that highly industrialised Japan (a member of G8) would come to dominate economic activity in the Asia-Pacific region; and to establish new markets for agricultural products and raw materials beyond Europe.(Andrew Elek)

The current biggest free trade blocs consist of the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Free Trade Agreements generally promote economies of scale, efficiency, competitiveness, reduction of production resources, and higher living standards (Manzella 1999). Nevertheless, FTAs differ to each other and need to be looked at separately (Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2016). One FTA may foster FDIs (Foreign Direct Investments), whilst another may bring about higher living standards through the increase of economic welfare. No matter what an FTA targets, businesses will be directly affected due to their dependency on a nation’s economic structure and its welfare. This

One of the economical trends in the past years is to have open markets and to trade among different states. This can be seen more then ever in the Americas where the majority of states are involved in regional trade blocs and also bilateral trade agreements. Since the 1990’s the Free Trade Area of the America’s (FTAA) as been in negotiation, which involves two main groups Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), which is an economic and political agreement between states such as Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela and associate states Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Then there is The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA is an

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): is a regional economic integration bloc that includes 10 countries located in Southeast Asia. The ASEAN represents 620 million people.

Trade agreements facilitate the free exchange of goods and services between nation-states, and contribute to varying degrees to complete economic integration between two or more states. Autarky refers to a non-trading status, a phenomenon rarely seen in today’s increasingly integrated globe. The steps taken to fully integrate are referred to as stages, a categorization that makes evident the variability in degree of integration. At the first stage, a preferential trade area can be set up as a less formal means of encouraging trade by enacting preferential tariffs to target specific countries’ exports (usually developing countries), in addition to other unilateral trade benefits. Free trade areas are the next step up along the full

Moreover, since China is the largest export market of Australia, its slowdown of growth probably influences the trade with Australia. At 2015, China’s GDP increasing rate was 6.9% and reached the bottom at 6.7% in the first quarter of 2016 . Some trade with Australia, such as iron ore, base metals and coal, may be affected by this reduction. As a result, we cannot deny that the cash rate may be influenced by the possible drop in the future. However, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed by China and Australia entered into force on 20 December 2015 . Due to the agreement, over 86% of Australia’s goods that export to China

In 1994, the leaders of the thirty-four democratic countries of the Western Hemisphere launched the process of creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA will be established by 2010 with the aim of gradually eradicating barriers to trade and investment in the region. The final characteristics of the FTAA will be determined through negotiations by government officials from the thirty-four participating countries. The trade issues that are presently under discussion are: market access; investment; services; government procurement; dispute settlement; agriculture; intellectual property; antidumping, subsidies and countervailing duties; and competition policy. Guiding principles for these negotiations

In recent years, Australia has been trying to negotiate with high trade potential countries, such as US, Thailand and Singapore to a conclusion of FTA and enhancing bilateral trade relationships with China. China is expanding its economy rapidly during the past decade. The inflow of export, investment and technology is driven by the strong demand of consumers. Early in 2002, Australia and China agreed to improve trade and investment opportunities for both countries. In July 2003, Australia has signed a FTA with Singapore to increase market access for Australia export services such as education, environmental and telecommunication services.

In order to detach trade between the nations by minimizing or reducing the various forms of barriers that restrict trade between the nations, free trade agreements are signed. The North American Free Trade Agreements and the ASEAN Free Trade Area are regions where usually sign Free trade agreements. However in this investigation, ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) will be discuss. AFTA has become the third largest trade bloc in the world and has gained importance to the society. In this investigation, the impacts of AFTA in Malaysia is being pointed out as for their benefits and their challenges faced.

China has negotiated FTAs with other nations to promote its economic growth and development contributing to globalisation through trade in goods and services. FTAs are international agreements between two or more countries to remove the high barriers of trade such as the removal or reduction of tariffs. China has entered into numerous FTAs such as the multilateral ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) and the bilateral Australian-China Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA). The advantage of FTAs agreements is that it has opened opportunities for China’s goods and services to enter the global market. China’s international trade flows have increased 500% since 1992 (UNSW). China’s exports grew 6.9% from 2016 to 188.98 billion USD in October 2017, with the largest increase of export

While going through different studies some of them have find mixed and inclusive result like (Abrams, 1980 and Frankel et al, 1995), Most of the recent studies found that FTAs/PTAs has raised the trade volume between associated countries.( Baier & Bergstrand, 2007). However, the increase in trade volume is not similar in developed and developing countries. The less developed countries are un-natural trading partners because of their similar comparative advantage, same endowments, limited economic sizes and higher trade costs (Krugman, 1991 and Magee, 2003). Southern countries can play better role in North-South agreements than agreements among themselves, because of having

ASEAN was officially founded in August 1967 when five founding member states jointly signed the Bangkok declaration. Since then ASEAN experienced number of threats, such as security threat in cold war, economic and financial threat in 1997 East Asia Economic crisis, and now being in the security dilemma between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, prominent major powers attempting to dominate the region, despite all the threat, ASEAN set its goal to become a community in December 2015 which has lot of potential to contribute to the world stage but it also has countless number of challenges, mainly caused by its diversities, nationalism and lack of

Today, there are many countries that establish organisations among themselves in order to protect their interest and gain benefits. One of the best examples of organisation form by nations would be the European Union (EU). It is an organisation that was formed by several European nations in order to attain economic stability, avoid conflicts as well as for political coalition. Another would be the Asian South East Asia Nation or better known as ASEAN. ASEAN is an organization that represents most of the countries that is located in the South East Asian region. It started as the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) in 1961 by Malaysia (known as Malaya before 1963), Philippines and Thailand. It became ASEAN in 1967 after Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia signed the ASEAN Declaration. At first, it was formed as an act of prevention from any communist led insurgency and serve as “serve as a security community, promoting social and political stability during a turbulent time in the region” as according to Sheila Smith, former Council of Foreign Relations officer (Bennett, Ginsberg, Xu). As time grows however, ASEAN becomes more important to the region and now, it consists of 10 nation state members from the South East Asia region.