Asean Tourism Group Begins Free-Trade Talks

A Special Task Force of ASEAN National Tourism Organisations on Trade Negotiations in the Tourism Sector met in Bangkok between June 8-9, 2000, to begin detailed discussions of liberalising various elements of the travel and tourism industry.


The Meeting was attended by Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, along with staff members of the ASEAN Secretariat. It was chaired by Mr Santichai Euachongprasit, Deputy Governor for Planning and Development of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
In his opening remarks, TAT Governor Pradech Phayakvichien extended a warm welcome to the delegations and called upon them to look into how NTOs could contribute to the realisation of the free flow of services by the year 2020 as envisaged by the ASEAN leaders.


The Governor stressed that ASEAN should capitalise on its diversity to attract the much needed foreign investment to develop its infrastructure needs; namely, tourism public related infrastructure, facilities and services, human resources and product infrastructure. He went on to point out that ASEAN would be in a better position to promote itself as a single destination to the rest of the world once the requisite infrastructure is in place.


The ASEAN Secretariat briefed the Meeting on the status of the liberalisation of the tourism sectors in ASEAN, and urged member countries to consider this liberalisation exercise as a supplement to the preparatory process for the Visit ASEAN Campaign due to start in 2001.


Since the signing of the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) in 1995, ASEAN has undertaken two rounds of negotiations covering the seven priority sectors, including tourism. ASEAN leaders mandated member countries to go into a third round of negotiations to cover all sectors and all modes of supply for the period of 1999-2001.


Subsequently, ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) agreed that all member countries should make offers in common sub-sectors. The Ministers define a
common sub-sector as a sub-sector where four or more ASEAN member countries have table offers under GATS or the AFAS Framework.
The Special Task Force agreed that ‘hotel lodging services’ would be the common sub-sector under the tourism sector. Various other issues relating to the liberalisation of facilitation (visa free facilities; exit tax) modes of supply and movement of natural persons have been deferred until subsequent meetings after each of the NTO representatives clarify their country’s position with other government authorities.


The task force delegates also agreed to consult with their relevant agencies on the possibility of considering food serving services and beverage services for consumption on the premises as common sub-sectors and to provide their feedback to Thailand, as Chairman of the Task Force, by July 10, 2000.
Member countries are to submit tentative schedules of commitments for the agreed common sub-sectors to Thailand, by 10 August 2000. Copies of member countries submissions are to be made available to the ASEAN Secretariat for analysis and reporting back to the next meeting of the Task Force in Bangkok on September 18-19, 2000.


In total, all the schedules of commitments for the tourism sector/sub-sectors are to be finalised by the ASEAN NTOs by June/July 2001 and then tabled for further approval at the 33rd ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting in October 2001 in VietNam.


During the Task Force meeting, Thailand also briefed delegates on the outlines of the paper tabled by the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Honduras on the need for an annex on tourism at the WTO General Council for Trade in Services.