ISDS Case Map
Japan
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his visiting Thai counterpart, Thaksin Shinawatra, agreed Thursday on a basic accord to lower mutual trade barriers that left key decisions on high tariffs on Japanese cars and Thai rice unresolved.
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz said she was confident that Malaysia would be able to sign a free trade agreement with Japan by December this year.
ASEAN General Secretary Ong Keng Yong has called on Japan make more compromises in free trade talks between the country and the regional grouping.
As part of efforts to promote free trade agreements (FTA) with Asian countries, Japan will step up such industrial aid as technical cooperation and personnel development for their automotive sectors.
The free trade talks between Thailand and Japan are approaching a crucial step, with officials preparing to address the origin of products, the last and thorniest issue on the agenda.
Japan's Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Mineichi Iwanaga says Japan has no intention of concluding a free-trade agreement with Australia.
The Federal Government wants to establish a powerful free trade bloc with Asia, giving Australia unprecedented economic access to almost half the world's population.
Countries in East Asia that are parties to, or in the process of negotiating, one or more free trade arrangements not only with countries within the region but outside the region as well, are looming to take the “hub and spoke” characteristic -- for example, ASEAN-China (2010), ASEAN-Japan (2012), and ASEAN-Korea, and Japan-Singapore (2002) and Japan-Philippines. Whether ASEAN would be the hub or spoke remains to be seen.
Ford Motor Group in the Philippines has put up a strong pressure on the government against signing a free trade pact with Japan that will put its assembly and exports program in the country at a disadvantage over Japanese assemblers.
Commerce Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said yesterday Thailand will definitely gain more than it will lose from a planned free-trade agreement with Japan because of probable greater investments and higher exports in the long term.
