CHINA JOINS BANGKOK AGREEMENT
Press Release
REC/87
CHINA JOINS BANGKOK AGREEMENT
20000410BANGKOK, 7 April (UN Information Service) -- In an important development that could have a profound impact on regional trade relations in Asia and the Pacific and possibly in the rest of the international trading system, China formally acceded to the Bangkok Agreement earlier this week. The Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Agreement, Bangladeshs M.A. Kamal, made the announcement at the end of the sixteenth session of the Committee which met in Bangkok 3 to 5 April. He pointed out that it was significant that China had acceded to Asias only regional preferential trading agreement ahead of its accession to the World Trade Organization. He believed that this marked the beginning of a new era for international trade relations in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Bangkok Agreement, signed in 1975 as an initiative of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), is a preferential tariff arrangement that aims at promoting intra-regional trade through exchange of mutually agreed concessions by member countries. Till now, five countries -- Republic of Korea, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Lao Peoples Democratic Republic -- were signatories to the Agreement. Several other countries have indicated their desire to join. So far, two rounds of trade negotiations have taken place and a schedule for the commencement of a third round is being drawn up by ESCAP, which also functions as the Secretariat for the Agreement.
Chinas accession is significant because it marks that countrys debut into regional trading agreements and is, therefore, an important milestone in its two- decade old outward-looking policy orientation. More significantly, it also means that members of the Agreement will have access on concessional terms to the markets of two giants of the global economy -- China and India -- with a combined population of more than 2.5 billion.
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