The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA)is a trade bloc agreement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations supporting local manufacturing in all ASEAN countries.
The
AFTA agreement was signed on 28 January 1992 in Singapore. When the
AFTA agreement was originally signed, ASEAN had six members, namely,
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Vietnam joined in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999.
AFTA now comprises the ten countries of ASEAN. All the four latecomers
were required to sign the AFTA agreement in order to join ASEAN, but
were given longer time frames in which to meet AFTA's tariff reduction
obligations.
The primary goals of AFTA seek to:
1. Increase
ASEAN's competitive edge as a production base in the world market
through the elimination, within ASEAN, of tariffs and non-tariff
barriers; and
2. Attract more foreign direct investment to ASEAN.
The
primary mechanism for achieving such goals is the Common Effective
Preferential Tariff scheme, which established a phased schedule in 1992
with the goal to increase the region’s competitive advantage as a production base geared for the world market.
