REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- ASEAN economic Ministers and the US Trade Representatives (USTR) have agreed to strengthen investment cooperation.
Under the agreement, the United States would assist ASEAN to meet international investment principles, Director General of International Trade Negotiations Iman Pambagyo said a news release received here on Sunday.
"Through this agreement , ASEAN countries including Indonesia could expand investment climate to attract more foreign investors," Iman, who represented the Indonesia Trade Minister at the 48th meeting of ASEAN economic minister in Vientiane, Laos, said.
He said the USTR plans to establish US-ASEAN Connect Center at the US Embassy in Jakarta.
US-ASEAN Connect Center to start operation in September 2016 would function as a framework in consolidating cooperation between ASEAN and the United States in political, economic and social affairs. In addition, the United States would provide training for ASEAN in e-commerce, customs affairs , and intellectual property rights (HKI) to meet the standard of international trade and that of advanced nations.
The ASEAN ministers also established cooperation with Canada to promote trade of goods and service and investment . The two sides agree to hold Trade Policy Dialogue as an annual event to explore new areas of cooperation, Iman said.
In addition to discussing concrete efforts to promote trade, the ASEAN ministers assigned Senior Economic Officials to prepare draft Terms of Reference (TOR) on the potential of ASEAN-Canada Free Trade Agreement by observing the dynamism of regional trade.
Apart from establishing cooperation with the USTR and Canada, ASEAN also is set to promote mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia with focuses on investment, finance, transport, e-commerce, energy, agriculture and maritime economy including issues of illegal Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing, Iman said.
He said ASEAN also agreed to start joint feasibility study of a possible free trade area between ASEAN and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and consider proposal to start negotiations of EAEU Free Trade Agreement limited only on trade and goods.
ASEAN welcomed plan for ASEAN-Russia Agriculture and Food Security Cooperation Work Programme (2016-2020), the ASEAN-Russia Plan of Action on Science, Technology and Innovation (2016-2020), and the ASEAN-Russia Energy Cooperation Work Plan (2016-2020), which were already agreed upon by the two sides before.
Goods trade between ASEAN and the United States in 2015 was valued at US$212.8 billion or equivalent to 9.3 percent of ASEAN's total trade value. Service trade between the two sides in the same year was valued at US$40 billion.
Foreign direct investment of the United States in ASEAN was valued at US$12.2 billion or the third largest FDI in ASEAN.
Canada is a potential trade partner for ASEAN and it has become a strategic partner for ASEAN in the past 40 years. The ASEAN-Canada trade in 2015 was valued at US$16.2 billion, up 13.8 percent from the year before.
Canada's FDI in ASEAN in the same year was recorded at US$7.6 billion.
Meanwhile, ASEAN-Russian trade was recorded at US$13.4 billion or around 0.6 percent of the total trade value of ASEAN in 2015, placing Russia the sixth largest trade partner of ASEAN that year.
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