Asean enhances trade in services
Asean enhances trade in services
Senior officials from Asean member countries are now working on the arrangements and adoption of protocol in relation to the trade in services and to ensure the region is fully integrated into global supply chains in goods and services.
The 84th Meeting of the Coordinating Committee on Services (CCS) is being held in Vientiane from May 16-21, hosted by the Investment Promotion Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
The CCS's meeting was chaired by Senior Assistant Director Ms Uma Muniandy from the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore.
The main objective of the trade in services in Asean are to further broaden and deepen services integration with Asean, Asean's integration into the global supply chains in both goods and services as well as to enhance Asean member states' competitiveness in services.
Along with the CCS meeting, several working groups with the following arrangements including the meeting of the Asean Architect Education Committee (AAEC), the roundtable meeting of the Asean Architect Council (AAC) and the Asean Chartered Professional Engineers Coordinating Committee (ACPECC).
In addition, other meetings of sectoral working groups on Logistics and Transport Services, telecommunications and IT, nursing, medical practitioners and healthcare services were also organised during the weeklong meeting in Vientiane.
At the CCS meeting, officials are also going through the AEC Blueprint 2025 Strategic Action Plan (SAP) to ensure that they are policy-focused, strategic and contain Asean-wide measures for submission to the 48th Asean Economics Ministerial Meeting in August this year for adoption.
During the discussion at the CCS meeting in Vientiane yesterday, the Asean members were updated on CCS and the progress of their offers for the 10th Package of Asean Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS Package).
The CCS also discussed Indonesia's protocol on the 10th AFAS staging plan and the draft text of the protocol to implement the 10th AFAS Package.
In the view of the mandate to include Asean Trade in Services Agreements (ATISA) in 2016, CCS also discussed the incorporation of additional elements, including those set out in the AEC Blueprint 2025, into ATISA.
The incorporation of relevant decisions of the Inter-sessional Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial meeting was held on July 13 last year in Malaysia.
The Asean Economic Community (AEC) came into effect at the end of 2015, however the arrangements of the strategies, policies and regulations to become a single window and one production base are still in the process of adoption and adjustment.
