RPT-FACTBOX-Trade deals in the Asia Pacific region

Thu Nov 12, 2009 11:40pm GMT
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(Repeats to link to related story, no change to text) (For full coverage of the APEC meetings, click [ID:nAPEC]

Nov 13 (Reuters) - Twenty years after the start of APEC, which brings together 21 Asia Pacific economies accounting for more than half of world economic output, questions remain about the future of Asian economic integration.

Will free trade forays between China, Japan, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, lead to "a line down the middle of the Pacific", separating Asia economically from the rest of world?

Or will Asia pursue an open model of economic integration, consistent with unfulfilled goals set in 1994, which called for free trade among developed APEC economies by 2010 and among the developing members of the group by 2020?

As leaders gather this week in Singapore for the annual APEC summit, here's a sampling of trade deals in the region:

ASEAN

Seven of the 10 members of ASEAN are also members of APEC -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The non-Apec members are Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

The grouping, which includes some 580 million people, already has free trade deals with China, South Korea and Japan, has signed pacts with Australia and New Zealand and India and is negotiating with the European Union.

The United States has a free trade pact with one ASEAN member, Singapore, but talks with Malaysia and Thailand on similar deals were never concluded.  Continued...

 
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