Market Access in Major FTAs and Implications for East Asian Economic Integration

초록

After the financial crisis, East Asian countries were attracted by the advantages of free trade agreements (FTAs), and now most of them are in the process of promoting FTAs with major trading partners. This paper aims at analyzing the coverage of tariff elimination in major FTAs and tries to present policy implications for East Asian economic integration. While comparing tariff concessions in FTAs between the Western hemisphere and East Asia, the coverage of tariff concession in the Western hemisphere is generally wider than that of East Asian countries. In many FTAs, agriculture is treated with wide exceptions from trade liberalization and long period of implementation. Some FTAs adopted various tariff concession categories for items included in the liberalization package. For example, Canada adopted 10 types of categories and Chile adopted 16 in Canada-Chile FTA. Most East Asian countries have weak industrial competitiveness and politically sensitive agricultural sectors. It is difficult for East Asian countries to actively pursue FTAs because of sensitive agriculture and the high tariff barriers. Thus, tariff concessions under FTAs are assumed to allow exceptions to sensitive sectors and long implementation periods in phasing out tariffs. However, FTAs should also satisfy the requirements specified in GATT Article XXIV. Nevertheless, East Asian countries should not wait passively for future economic integration in view of global trends for economic integration. They need to consider currently possible economic cooperation schemes while proceeding with public discussions and research. For instance, East Asian countries need to simplify customs procedures which are one of serious non-tariff barriers. Furthermore, these countries should explore harmonization of customs procedures. To facilitate this, countries that have already constructed advanced customs procedures need to provide technical support to less developed countries.