China ratifies accession to Bangkok Agreement

Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) -- China has completed the formalities related to its accession to the Bangkok Agreement – one of Asia’s oldest regional trading agreement (RTA) when it deposited the instrument of ratification with the ESCAP secretariat at its the fifty-seventh session of the Economic Commission of the Asia and Pacific (ESCAP) 23-25 April.

With China’s accession, the Bangkok Agreement becomes the largest RTA in the world in terms of market potential with a combined population of member countries of more than 2.5 billion.

Head of the Chinese delegation and Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr. Zhang Yesui expressed the hope that China’s accession “will bring fresh vitality to the Bangkok Agreement so that it will play a greater role in promoting regional economic and trade cooperation.”

“The Bangkok Agreement is the first RTA that China has joined leaving Japan as the only Asian economic power that has yet to become a member of any formal regional trading arrangements”, said an ESCAP spokesman. Japan, like China, is a member of the APEC, which is an ‘open’ arrangement, based on voluntary trade and economic liberalization by members. The Bangkok Agreement on the other hand is a trading arrangement based on the grant of tariff and other trade preferences through formal negotiations of the same among member countries.

Under the Agreement, the member countries will be able to export 634 products to China at concessional tariffs. The margin of preference on those items, compared with China’s most-favoured-nation duty, ranges from 10 to 84 per cent. The list of concessions under the agreement is expected to expand substantially with the forthcoming Third Round of Negotiations.

Several interested countries of the region have keenly watched the ratification by China, as it means that members of the Agreement will have easier access to China’s huge market. The current members of the Agreement are the Republic of Korea, India, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.