FOR MORE INFOFriday, June 18, 2010
NEM Offers Fresh Perspective
June 18, 2010 | By Christine Lim
NEM Offers Fresh Perspective For EU-Malaysia FTA Negotiations, Says EU Envoy
KUALA LUMPUR, June 18 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's New Economic Model which emphasizes on the services sector will create new areas of cooperation between European Union and Malaysia, says EU Ambassador to Malaysia, Vincent Piket.
The EU, which will go into a second round of meetings with Ministry of International Trade and Industry next month, in exploration of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with Malaysia, is confident of establishing common grounds for negotiations.
"At the moment we are at the phase of exploratory talks on the basic outline of negotiations," he said at a press conference held in conjunction with his visit to Bernama and a talk on "EU Trade Policy: What it means to Malaysia."
"We had a full meeting last week and are looking at the results. There is a need to look at new perspective to boost business with current economic climate in Europe and Malaysia," Piket said.
The EU is currently negotiating with Singapore and Vietnam for FTA.
While it had originally planned for a FTA with Asean, it opted to negotiate with individual countries with hopes of grouping it under one entity later on.
"EU continues to be interested in the EU Asean FTA. That is our long term goal. Asean and EU has concluded that right now constructing a region to region FTA is not feasible," he said.
On FTA negotiations, Piket said there would be inherent challenges for the success of any FTA with the high standards specified by the World Trade Organization framework.
Policies on sustainable development, labour and environment, would be among the major challenges in negotiations, he said.
"The same goes for public and government procurement, where the EU wishes to negotiate market access," he said.
To a question on problems faced by Malaysian palm oil exporters in the EU market, Piket clarified that while there were certain EU conditions to fulfill for biofuel exporters wishing to gain in terms of incentives and subsidies, there were no restrictions to biofuel being exported.
The conditions set for gaining incentives meanwhile include the sustainable production of biofuel, he explained.
He said the EU-wide sustainability standards due to come into effect by the end of the year would call for certification schemes designed to ensure biofuels are produced in an environmentally sustainable manner.
He also said that there were no restrictions on edible palm oil exported to the EU, adding that it was the non-governmental organisations in EU that were strongly lobbying for conditions on edible palm oil exports.
-- BERNAMA
NEM Offers Fresh Perspective For EU-Malaysia FTA Negotiations, Says EU Envoy
KUALA LUMPUR, June 18 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's New Economic Model which emphasizes on the services sector will create new areas of cooperation between European Union and Malaysia, says EU Ambassador to Malaysia, Vincent Piket.
The EU, which will go into a second round of meetings with Ministry of International Trade and Industry next month, in exploration of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with Malaysia, is confident of establishing common grounds for negotiations.
"At the moment we are at the phase of exploratory talks on the basic outline of negotiations," he said at a press conference held in conjunction with his visit to Bernama and a talk on "EU Trade Policy: What it means to Malaysia."
"We had a full meeting last week and are looking at the results. There is a need to look at new perspective to boost business with current economic climate in Europe and Malaysia," Piket said.
The EU is currently negotiating with Singapore and Vietnam for FTA.
While it had originally planned for a FTA with Asean, it opted to negotiate with individual countries with hopes of grouping it under one entity later on.
"EU continues to be interested in the EU Asean FTA. That is our long term goal. Asean and EU has concluded that right now constructing a region to region FTA is not feasible," he said.
On FTA negotiations, Piket said there would be inherent challenges for the success of any FTA with the high standards specified by the World Trade Organization framework.
Policies on sustainable development, labour and environment, would be among the major challenges in negotiations, he said.
"The same goes for public and government procurement, where the EU wishes to negotiate market access," he said.
To a question on problems faced by Malaysian palm oil exporters in the EU market, Piket clarified that while there were certain EU conditions to fulfill for biofuel exporters wishing to gain in terms of incentives and subsidies, there were no restrictions to biofuel being exported.
The conditions set for gaining incentives meanwhile include the sustainable production of biofuel, he explained.
He said the EU-wide sustainability standards due to come into effect by the end of the year would call for certification schemes designed to ensure biofuels are produced in an environmentally sustainable manner.
He also said that there were no restrictions on edible palm oil exported to the EU, adding that it was the non-governmental organisations in EU that were strongly lobbying for conditions on edible palm oil exports.
-- BERNAMA
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