The 16th Meeting of the ASEAN Trade Facilitation Joint Consultative Committee (ATF-JCC) was recently held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) in Hanoi.

The ASEAN Trade Facilitation Joint Consultative Committee convenes
the 16th meeting in Hanoi on January 10 (Photo: VNA)

The meeting on January 10 was the first on economic issues organised by the MoIT in Vietnam’s 2020 ASEAN Chairmanship.

Luong Hoang Thai, Director of the MoIT’s Multilateral Trade Policy Department, said the event discussed the cooperation in facilitating intra-ASEAN trade and consulted about initiatives such as simplifying customs procedures with the aim of reducing 10 percent of trading cost within the bloc in 2020.

Participants looked into ways to double the intra-bloc trade value in the 2017-2025 period as targeted in the 2025 Trade Facilitation Strategic Action Plan of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the AEC 2025 Strategic Action Plan for Trade in Goods.

Issues put on the table also included the establishment of a mechanism for exchanging information about non-tariff measures (NTMs), the increase of consultation between ASEAN governments and the business community, and a proposal for regulatory impact assessment of NTMs.

The meeting updated the database on NTMs built by ASEAN’s partners to publish on the ASEAN Trade Repository and the national trade repositories of the member countries. It also proposed the organisation of workshops and capacity building for the nations.

Thai noted that as the chairman, Vietnam actively conferred with other ASEAN members, the ASEAN Secretariat, the bloc’s specialised agencies and partners to help the meeting reach unanimity on the issues raised at the meeting.