A look at the results of ASEAN 2025 and the pivotal deals signed at the summit

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe spoke to Rajiv Biswas, CEO of Asia-Pacific Economics.

Transcript

00:00Well, the 11-member ASEAN VLOC is China's largest trading partner.

00:04Together, the countries represent a market of 2 billion people,

00:07with bilateral trade reaching nearly a trillion dollars last year.

00:10Rajiv Biswas is the CEO of Asia Pacific Economics.

00:14Thank you so much for joining us.

00:15Now, if I could just ask you really what your highlights were from this year's ASEAN Summit,

00:19and what about the timing of what was announced?

00:22Well, I think it's brought a very turbulent year in world trade with the U.S. tariffs and so on

00:30to quite a successful conclusion.

00:33I think it's been an outstanding ASEAN Summit, very well led by Malaysia in the role of chair.

00:40And I think there's been some outstanding outcomes.

00:43I think Timor-Leste joining ASEAN as the 11th member was a very important outcome.

00:50That's a developing country that I think will benefit considerably from coming under the umbrella of ASEAN.

00:59I think also another key highlight has been the Thailand-Cambodia peace accords

01:05and the effort Malaysia has made us the chair to bring about that very good outcome.

01:11And then I think, of course, the China-U.S. framework trade deal was a very important outcome

01:19on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit.

01:23And also, I think very important has been the China-ASEAN free trade area upgrade deal,

01:32the 3.0 upgrade, which is very important for bilateral trade,

01:38which actually has reached almost a trillion U.S. dollars in size.

01:42So, you know, China and ASEAN have very, very important trade partners for each other.

01:49Well, indeed. So some really significant outcomes.

01:52And let's talk a little bit more about that China-ASEAN enhanced free trade pact.

01:56What do you think the most important changes are to that?

01:59I think what has happened since the original agreement, which was concluded in 2010,

02:08is that bilateral trade has really escalated very dramatically.

02:13Around 2010, bilateral trade was around 200 billion U.S. dollars.

02:19By 2024, it's reached about $1 trillion.

02:22So a very large expansion driven by the rapid growth of both China and ASEAN in that time frame.

02:30Bilateral trade has been going at about 11 percent per year.

02:33So I think early wins in the early years were tariff reductions.

02:37That helped a lot.

02:39But in this round, the 3.0 upgrade, what we've seen is a lot of deep strengthening

02:45of the whole trade agreements in areas such as the green economy.

02:50Digital economy has been very important with the digitalization of the world economy.

02:55Some of those measures for improving hard connectivity in the digital economy

03:01through digital infrastructure and also soft connectivity with things like e-invoicing,

03:07e-payments for trade have also been important outcomes that have been agreed at this 3.0 upgrade.

03:14So I think a lot of the additional measures reflect the deepening of the overall trade agreement

03:23in areas where the economy is heading towards, such as the green economy, digital trade,

03:30and also strengthening supply chains in the region, reducing customs barriers.

03:36So these are all very important measures, not always related to tariffs,

03:42but non-tariff related measures that will also be very important for the new economy going forward.

03:50Rajiv, really great to get your insights.

03:51Thank you so much for being with us today.

03:53Rajiv Biswas, CEO of Asia Pacific Economics.

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