European businesses in South East Asia have called for the elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade to boost market access, increase trade and investment between Europe and ASEAN.
The EU-ASEAN Business Council – the voice of European business in South East Asia – has launched a region-wide position paper of recommendations to boost economic relations between the two regions.
EU is the first customs union among 28 countries in Europe  while ASEAN is a free trade bloc which groups 10 countries into a free trade bloc. It seeks to attain full economic integration or the ASEAN Economic Community by end this year.
In its paper, the council stressed that access to markets in ASEAN is an important factor in encouraging greater investment.
Europe is already the region’s largest source of foreign direct investments and this position paper explores ways to open up markets even further in line with the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint, the council said.
Top of the list is the elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade, but the paper also highlights a number of market access issues across ASEAN.
These other barriers include cumbersome customs procedures with little harmonization across ASEAN; unpredictable application of regulations and procedures, impacting the ability of businesses to make informed long term investment decisions; restrictions on foreign ownership and foreign competition; and lack of harmonized standards or the lack of mutual recognition of such standards across the region.
“These four broad themes limit the ability of businesses – from ASEAN or elsewhere – to trade effectively with partners across South East Asia. They also limit the ability of businesses to make long term investment decisions,” the paper said.
The implementation of the paper’s recommendations would help boost trade and investment within the region, the group added.  .
The ASEAN Business Council’s statistics on market access showed that the European Union – the world’s largest economy – is ASEAN’s second most important trading partner after China, accounting for 13 percent of ASEAN’s trade in goods with the world.
Between 2004 and 2014 ASEAN-EU trade grew an annual compound rate of 4.7 percent. The balance of trade is very much in ASEAN’s favor, with the EU importing more from the region than it exports to it.
Other key statistics also showed that Singapore is the EU’s most important trading partner in ASEAN, accounting for 25.1 percent  of ASEAN-EU trade in goods. Malaysia is second, accounting for 18.8 percent of trade, followed by Thailand and Vietnam on 17.3 percent and 15.8 percent respectively.
In 2013, the EU was ASEAN’s largest investor with EUR 156bn in FDI stocks. In 2013 the EU accounted for 22 percent of investment flows into ASEAN, followed by Japan on 18.7 percent.
Singapore accounts for 60 percent of the EU’s FDI stock, followed by Indonesia (15%) and Malaysia (11%).
Singapore is the largest ASEAN investor in the European Union, accounting for 76% of all ASEAN FDI stock in the EU.

July 16, 2015
Source: mb.com.ph