EU, ASEAN resume free trade talks

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on Friday said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU) have agreed to resume free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations.

"The AEM (Asean Economic Ministers) and the EU Trade Commissioner discussed the next steps towards the resumption of the ASEAN-EU free trade agreement negotiations," Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said in a press conference in Pasay City.

Economic ministers of ASEAN member states, as well as European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malstrom, are currently in the Philippines for the ASEAN Summit 2017.

Lopez, who currently chairs the AEM, said Senior Economic Officials were tasked to develop a framework encompassing the parameters of a future ASEAN-EU FTA, and to report back to the next AEM-EU Trade Commissioner Consultations.

"We decided today that we would make our senior officials identify the parameters, the skeleton to launch the free trade negotiations between EU and ASEAN as regions," Malstrom told reporters separately.

While Malstrom declined to give a time table for this, she said the developments will be discussed in Singapore this time next year.


"I can't tell you how much time that will take," she said. — VDS, GMA News