Spreaders of Conspiracy Theories: Unmasking the Motivations Behind the Lies

[churchill]

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- A free-trade agreement between China and Southeast Asia comes into force tomorrow, consolidating a sixfold surge in economic activity over the past decade between countries representing a quarter of the world’s population.

The agreement expands a limited 2005 trade area between China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, scrapping tariffs on about 90 percent of goods. By 2015, duties must be cut to no more than 50 percent on “highly sensitive” items, including ambulances in Brunei, popcorn in Indonesia, snowboard boots in Thailand and toilet paper in China.

China’s economic clout in Southeast Asian countries has risen over the past decade as policy makers slashed tariffs on electronics, automobile parts and computer chips. Japan, India, Europe and the U.S. have followed China in courting Asean, home to investments from Intel Corp., the world’s largest maker of computer chips, and Toyota Motor Corp., the biggest carmaker.

“This FTA is going to make a difference at the margin to some Asean countries but not others,” said Razeen Sally, a director of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy, a trade-policy research group. “Basically it takes down the tariffs but does little on all the non-tariff barriers where you would have much bigger gains to trade.”

China’s trade with Asean has jumped sixfold since 2000 to $193 billion last year, surpassing that of the U.S. China’s share of Southeast Asia’s total commerce has increased to 11.3 percent from 4 percent in that time, whereas the U.S.’s portion of trade with the bloc fell to 10.6 percent from 15 percent, Asean statistics show.

Deficit Widens

During that time, Asean’s trade deficit with China widened by five times to $21.6 billion. The bloc reported a $21.2 billion trade surplus with the U.S. last year, down 12 percent from 2000.

The trade agreement would hit high-tariff industries in Indonesia and the Philippines more than other Asean countries, Sally said. Trade in parts and components, the “central artery” of China-Asean economic ties, won’t be affected much because most of those tariffs are already near zero, he said.

Opposition to the trade agreement has been loudest in Indonesia, where the government has sought to placate concerns that industries including textiles, food and electronics will suffer. Indonesia should renegotiate the deal because the textile industry may see its domestic market share decline by 50 percent as cheaper Chinese goods enter the market, said Ade Sudradjat, vice chairman of the Indonesian Textile Association.

The government is setting up a team to monitor trade practices, Hatta Rajasa, coordinating minister for the economy, told reporters in Jakarta yesterday.

“When a nation has cheap products, we must see whether there’s unfair trade in it, such as unfair subsidies,” he said. “We must be proactive.”

Port Inspection

Indonesia, Asean’s biggest economy and home to about 40 percent of the bloc’s 584 million people, has required Chinese exports of garments, electronics, shoes, toys and food to be shipped from designated ports with every container inspected upon arrival. China, poised to overtake Germany as the world’s largest exporter this year, faces 101 trade investigations in 19 countries, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported this month.

To help its exporters, China has halted the yuan’s gains against the dollar from July last year. In 2009 the yuan has remained largely unchanged against the dollar while Indonesia’s rupiah climbed 15.5 percent, Thailand’s baht advanced 4.2 percent and the Philippine peso increased 2.3 percent.

Asean includes Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Wide economic disparity has hindered the group’s efforts to form a single market, as the purchasing power of the group’s four richest countries was 10 times greater than that of the other members last year, according to statistics on the bloc’s Web site.

--With assistance from Agus Suhana in Jakarta. Editors: Ben Richardson, Dirk Beveridge

To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at +66-2-654-7318 or [email protected]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2009-12-3...ilet-paper.html

[nakachalet]

churchill:

and what did the thai assocation of textile manufacturers around samutprakarn et al say about this, pls?

are you able to dig up anything on this pls?

thx

[Yamantaka]

China is the biggest threat to world peace and prosperity. Buying anything produced in China makes one complicit in:

Genocide: more than 2 million Tibetans murdered including 100,000 monks and 8,000 Temples destroyed;

Human rights: summary executions for expressing opinions, demanding basic rights and wanting freedom;

Labor: highest incidence of slave labor and child labor requiring 18 hours a day work without breaks, living on site sleeping on the floor without proper sanitation;

Environmental pollution: more ongoing and planned destructive infrastructure that will further degrade the atmosphere, land and water;

Ecological: far and away the biggest trade in the body parts of endangered and protected species;

Trade: inundating the world's market with cheap, inferior quality goods a huge percentage of which are toxic and lethal, endangering the children of the world.

There is nothing made in China that anyone needs. I will never buy anything made there. Enough Already!

[churchill]

Zero tariffs for ASEAN-6 starting

Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand can import and export almost all goods across their borders at no tariff as the Common Effective Preferential Tariffs for ASEAN Free Trade Area (CEPT-AFTA) takes effect.

This move which will bring the total tariff lines traded under the agreement to 54,457 or 99.11 percent is a major milestone in efforts to transform ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) into a more integrated regional bloc economically, politically, socially, and culturally.

“The elimination of tariffs by ASEAN -6 underscores ASEAN's commitment to dismantle tariffs and keep intra-ASEAN trade open. It will also serve as a catalyst for the development of the single market and production base projected by the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint,” the Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat said in a statement.

Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN Secretary General, said the landmark agreement could mean savings for the 600 million ASEAN consumers depending on the market dynamics of the respective ASEAN -6 countries.

“We sincerely hope that all parties will act to ensure that the man on the street will benefit from these reductions in tariffs,” he said. The business community, especially the downstream producers, also stands to gain in this new regional setup, Pitsuwan said.

“Lower cost of inputs will allow the business community a wider choice of goods, and in the process, they will move towards becoming more competitive globally, as envisaged in the AEC Blueprint,” he added.

Under CEPT-AFTA, an additional 7,881 tariff lines will come down to zero tariffs for the so-called ASEAN -6, the secretariat said.

“Additionally, with the reduction, the average tariff rate for these countries is expected to further decrease from 0.79 percent in 2009 to just 0.05 percent in 2010,” it said.

In 2008, intra-ASEAN import value of commodities for these 7,881 tariff lines amounted to US$22.66 billion, or 11.84 percent of ASEAN -6 import value within ASEAN.

continued ..http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/asia/asian-market/2010/01/02/239077/p1/Zero-tariffs.htm

[NearestTheTee]

China is the biggest threat to world peace and prosperity. Buying anything produced in China makes one complicit in:

Genocide: more than 2 million Tibetans murdered including 100,000 monks and 8,000 Temples destroyed;

Human rights: summary executions for expressing opinions, demanding basic rights and wanting freedom;

Labor: highest incidence of slave labor and child labor requiring 18 hours a day work without breaks, living on site sleeping on the floor without proper sanitation;

Environmental pollution: more ongoing and planned destructive infrastructure that will further degrade the atmosphere, land and water;

Ecological: far and away the biggest trade in the body parts of endangered and protected species;

Trade: inundating the world's market with cheap, inferior quality goods a huge percentage of which are toxic and lethal, endangering the children of the world.

There is nothing made in China that anyone needs. I will never buy anything made there. Enough Already!

What about your PC/mouse/keyboard? There is a high chance that some of it is made in China. Same goes for your mobile phone and it's internal components!