It has taken eight years to plan, but China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have created the largest free trade area (FTA) of developing countries. Together this FTA represents over 1.9 billion consumers and over $4.5 trillion USD worth of trade. This makes the ASEAN FTA the third largest FTA behind the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement area.
Stronger political trust, deeper trade partnerships and closer social and cultural exchanges are just some of the advantages hoping to be gained from the FTA.
For this FTA, the average tariff for ASEAN goods to China will decrease from 9.8 per cent to .01 per cent. Further, the original six ASEAN members have cut their tariffs on Chinese goods from 12.8 per cent to 0.6 per cent.
Photo by Wolfgang Staudt
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