Promoting South-South trade and investment linkages

The current tariff concessions under the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) were established on the basis of the three completed rounds of negotiations, which are under implementation. The First Round of negotiations was concluded in 1975, leading to the signing of the original agreement by the Participating States of APTA. The Second Round of negotiations started in 1984 and was concluded in 1990 while the Third Round of negotiations started in 2001 and was concluded in 2003. During the Third Round, the agreement was revised and common rules of origin (RoO) were adopted. This was a departure from the previous arrangements, where there were no common or harmonized RoO and each member was free to adopt its own RoO to allow preferential imports. This caused some hardship for the exporters as they were required to meet different obligations for getting preferences under the Agreement. The implementation of the Third Round concessions started from 1 September 2006.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions