2008-E-10
Singapore and ASEAN in Competitive Regionalism inSoutheast Asia and beyond
Takashi Terada
Professor at Organization for Asian Studies,
Waseda University
June 2008

Paper presented at the International Symposium “Competitive Regionalism,” Ibuka
International Conference Hall, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. May 30 to 31, 2008.

1. Introduction
When the negotiations for trade liberalisation in global and regional levels bogged down,
Singapore swiftly engaged in planning for and forging a vast array of Free Trade
Agreements (FTAs), culminating in the creation of an FTA groundswell in East Asiaand beyond. On the role played by Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong,confidently stated that “to say it is because of us may be too strong, but we set an
example and we set people thinking. And I think that’s also the reason why ASEAN[Association of Southeast Asian Nations] itself is discussing FTAs. There is ademonstration effect” (cited in Straits Times, 1 December 2004). Singapore’s interest in
singing bilateral FTAs consecutively3 was partly born out of a fear of its survival as asmall nation, and FTAs are expected to help Singapore overcome its innate inability tocall effectively for diplomatic and economic changes in Southeast Asia.
There are two layers of FTA movements in Southeast Asia: 1) bilateral FTAs between
ASEAN members and extra regional countries and 2) FTAs between ASEAN as asingle unit and extra regional countries. This chapter initially focuses on the first layerof FTA diffusion by exploring impetuses behind Singapore’s active engagement in FTA
negotiations by examining three elements (economic, security and legal), set out by(Katada and Solis 2008), to establish whether Singapore has contributed to the growthof FTAs involving both Southeast and Northeast Asian countries, and if so, how. A
major analytical focus here is the degree of the impact of the Japan-Singapore
Economic Partnership Agreement (JSEPA) on the trade liberalisation movement in theregion, since JSEPA is the first bilateral FTA signed by Asian countries and Japan was
the largest trading partner and investment source to many Southeast Asian countries.
Singapore’s efforts to sign an FTA with Japan through diplomatic persuasion andpolitical concession effectively functioned and the resultant involvement of Japan into
the FTA politics in Southeast Asia is evaluated as an independent variable in the FTA
proliferation in the region. The chapter also looks at the nature of trade policy-making
system in Singapore to identify domestic players in support of Singapore’s active FTA
policy, and it is argued that the little involvement of the business sector in trade
policymaking is a common feature in Southeast Asia. The chapter finally analyses
another level of FTA proliferation which has taken place in East Asia where ASEAN
The author greatly appreciates Masato Kamikubo for making charts in Appendix.
Singapore has concluded FTAs with New Zealand (2000), Japan (2002), the European Free Trade
Association (comprising Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) (2002), Australia (2003), theUnited States (2003), Jordan (2004), India (2005), South Korea (2005) and Panama (2006). Singapore ispresently engaged in FTA negotiations with countries including Bahrain, Mexico, Canada, Panama, Peru,
Sri Lanka and Ukraine.
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1

has served as a hub position in the ASEAN+1 FTA networks with five major powers.
The origins of this approach can be traced back to China’s FTA proposal to ASEAN in
2000 as a result of the bilateral FTA initiative started by Japan and South Korea. While
ASEAN consistently needs external markets and investments and the growth of
ASEAN+1 FTA approach is a suitable for this structural feature, ASEAN itself still
hesitates to join the movement into a wider regional integration in East Asia, forinstance by consolidating its five ‘+1’ FTAs with those extra larger partners, for fear of
marginalisation in the region. Given bilateral FTAs’ impact in Southeast Asia is limited
as only Singapore and Thailand have virtually signed multiple bilateral FTAs and those
FTA are, moreover, not well utilised by ASEAN’s and multinational companies either,
ASEAN’s integration scheme itself does not contribute to further growth in the region,
and ASEAN’s decision to go beyond ASEAN-centred mindset by joining a region-wide
FTA in East Asia is more desirable.
2. Singapore’s economic and security impetuses behind the pursuit of FTAs
Singapore has enjoyed the world’s highest trade to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio,
about 300 percent, a fact that well accounts for its active diplomatic endeavours tofacilitate the trade liberalization movements in the GATT/WTO-based multilateral
trading system, as well as its efforts at regional levels such as ASEAN, the Pacific
Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation(APEC) forum. Singapore’s commitment to global and regional trade liberalization canbe seen in its efforts. It was Singapore that hosted the inaugural WTO Ministerial
Conference in December 1996, and it invited the Secretariats of both PECC and APEC.
However, both regional and multilateral negotiations became inert in the late 1990s: theAsian financial crisis in 1997 had held up the pace of ASEAN members’ liberalization
movement and sapped ASEAN’s collective strength, while APEC became unwieldy andill-equipped to handle trade issues effectively, due mainly to the failure of the Early
Voluntary Sectoral Liberalization (EVSL) program. In the multilateral arena, Singapore
grew to be dysfunctional in trade liberalization talks. This was evident in the 1999
Ministerial Meeting in Seattle, in which the increasing influence of developing
countries was strong enough to hamper the liberalization movement in WTO, which
employed a consensus-based decision-making approach among over 150 members.
Under this international and regional trading circumstances, Singapore’s interest in
bilateral FTAs eventually emerged as a fallback tool, since they were supposed to be
more effective in promoting trade liberalization. Singapore hoped this trading2

arrangement could be useful in securing larger markets on a preferential basis, attracting
more Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), strengthening its position as a transportationhub, and circumventing future protectionism and discrimination movements (Rajan, Sen
and Siregar, 2001: 10). In fact, in view of potential cost savings to be accrued fromSingapore’s attempt to forge more FTAs, more foreign companies have been expected
to transfer their production bases to Singapore (Straits Times, 23 March 2003). As
Prime Minister Goh (2001) mentioned, in WTO and APEC, even when a consensus isreached, it is one formed on the “lowest common denominator,” which holds back moredeveloped economies for the sake of the less developed. In some areas where noconsensus could be reached, a few members would be left out. In comparison, bilateral
FTAs could overcome these sorts of problems by having only to meet the requirementsof the two nations. Singapore’s determination in pursuit of bilateral FTAs was
epitomized by Goh’s statement made at the 2000 APEC Summit in Brunei: “Those who
can run faster should run faster. They should not be restrained by those who don’t wantto run at all” (cited in Australian Financial Review 16 November 2000).
Singapore’s choice of Japan and the United States as its second and third FTA partners
were attributed to Singapore’s expectation to bring more direct economic benefits. Japanis the second largest economy in the world, and Japanese companies have an imposing
presence in Singapore. Major Japanese manufacturers such as SONY or NEC have set
up their operational headquarters in Singapore, forging strong and enduring economic
and business networks in Southeast Asia. An FTA with Japan was thus perceived tostrengthen these business ties and economic relations through the formalization of thosede facto extensive business, and economic links. For instance, JSEPA grants
Japan-based companies national treatment in Singapore, and allows those companies tofreely transfer funds related to investment in and out of Singapore. Since the 1980s,
Japan was consistently one of Singapore’s top three trading partners. In 1999, when theidea of JSEPA was muted, Japan was Singapore’s third largest trading partner,
contributing to 12 percent of Singapore’s total merchandise trade. On average, it
constituted about 20 percent of Singapore’s total imports (MOFA 2000). The
US-Singapore FTA, with which Singapore exporters would be able to save US$110
million dollars per year in tariffs they would no longer need to pay. This would boost
Singapore's economic output by at least 0.7 percent a year, while providing Singapore
companies with access to a wider North American market, thanks to the North
American Free Trade Agreement (Straits Times 25 August 2002). The FTAs with these
two economic superpowers were expected to play a catalyst role in increasing

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Singapore’s economic and business presence in the Japanese and US markets.
Singapore's prosperity has been closely associated to the economic growth of Southeast
Asia, as well as investment and trade with the major economies outside the region. Thus,
the prosperity of the region also has a strong impact on Singapore’s economy. This wasseen in the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which seriously hampered ASEAN’s economic
growth. Given the fact that Japan had also been an important source of investments,
capital, and technology, and a major export market for ASEAN economies, Singapore
wanted to anchor Japan’s engagement in Southeast Asian economies. In other words,
Singapore's FTA initiatives with major economies like Japan and the United States,
were expected to catalyse wider economic links and cooperation with economies inSoutheast Asia, creating greater trade and investment flows for ASEAN members,
helping regional economic growth, and creating more employment.
As Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew noted, this point is considered especiallysignificant, as JSEPA was thought to be useful to counter the economic threat posed by
China, which has attracted more FDIs after entering the WTO in 2001 (cited in Jiji
Press News, 5 September 2001). China's economic rise has been boosting its influencein the region, having a substantial impact on regional economic flows and ties. Also,
China's portion of Asia's FDI inflows has been rising. For example, Japan's FDI in
China during the first half of fiscal 2003 was 35.5% on a year-on-year basis, but its FDI
ASEAN fell 14.6% during the same period (Kwan 2004). This has a worrying effect on
the rest of ASEAN economies. JSEPA has been expected to act as an important catalyst
in promoting Japanese investment in Singapore, blazing the trail for other ASEAN
members to attract more Japanese investment through FTAs.
Singapore’s growing interest in FTAs was spurred not only by trade and investment
interest, but also by strategic considerations. Singapore tended to believe that FTAs
with major economies would secure its presence in Southeast Asia by strengthening ties
with the FTA partners outside the region. Leifer (2000: 26) argued that Singapore wasborn with an innate vulnerability arising from its geopolitical circumstances:“wedged-in” by big Islamic countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. A useful way tocounter this vulnerability was related to the concept of the balance of power that is“directed to finding and employing ways of compensating for and reshaping toadvantage a regional distribution of power,” which includes “liberal internationalism ineconomic policy.” For instance, in November 2000, Indonesian President Wahid,4

unhappy with Singapore’s rejection of his proposal to include East Timor and Papua
New Guinea in ASEAN, urged Malaysia to form an alliance with the idea of cutting off
Singapore’s water supply. This was one of the many unfavourable remarks against
Singapore, and allowed Singaporeans to see that their security could be easily
jeopardized by their neighbouring nations. Antagonism towards Singapore in Malaysia
and Indonesia has been its primary political fear. Political unpredictability in bothcountries has an adversarial impact on Singapore’s foreign policy approaches. Therefore,“the multiple involvements of important extra-regional states have been encouraged as apractical way of coping with vulnerability” (Leifer 2000: 26). Raymond Lim, Ministerof State for Trade and Industry and Foreign Affairs supports this view by stating that“our FTAs allow important nations like Japan and the United States to anchor theirpresence in the region and ensure that they remain stakeholders here” (cited in Straits
Times, 3 March 2003). This statement indicates that FTAs are expected to act as acatalyst for powerful FTA partners to continue commitment and goodwill to Singapore
and Southeast Asia, which is conducive to regional stability and prosperity.
Singapore leaders tend to emphasize the need to constantly stay ahead of neighbours
and competitors for the survival in both economic and strategic contexts and Lee Hsien
Loong once pointed out that should Singapore be overtaken and made irrelevant, its“influence and international standing will go down” (cited in Leifer 2000: 21). In
summary, FTAs are expected to help Singapore overcome its innate inability toeffectively call for diplomatic and economic changes in Southeast Asia.
3. Little influence of business society in trade policymaking
The companies of non-FTA partners are seen to be greatly disadvantaged in competingwith other firms from FTA partners, whose products can enjoy tariff-free privileges,leading to the creation of a trade diversion effect. Therefore, as （Solis and Katada
2008) argues, business sectors or interests groups for certain industries tend to exercise
an influence on the trade policy direction. However, the business sectors in Singapore,like many other ASEAN members, do not usually involve in the trade policymaking,and their voices are not necessarily influential in its government’s pursuit of FTAs. Sally(2004: 27) regards the absence of systematic process of business input as the “Achilles
heel” of Singapore’s trade policy-making, generating “the passivity of the businesssector” in Singapore’s FTA movement. This may make it difficult for Singapore to“digest the real business preferences and information”, and to enjoy “business feedbacks
at home”. One of the reasons behind the slight business interest in exercising an

5influence on the government’s economic policy in Singapore lies in the excessive
economic reach of the government in the market. In Singapore numerous
government-linked companies (GLCs) exist in which former and current ministers andmembers of the People’s Action Party (PAP) are involved, representing their great
market power to the detriment of smaller private companies in Singapore. It is theUnited States that has the market principle “embedded in reforms as a way to increase
access for American companies to the domestic market for banking, insurance and otherprofessional services” through protracted FTA negotiations (Rodan 2005).
The centralized trade policy making is, to a differing degree though, a sort of generalcharacteristics in Southeast Asia including Thailand, another key regional FTA player
next to Singapore (Sally 2007: 1602). Although the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia
and the Philippines sporadically consulted with non-governmental sectors includingcommerce and industry organisations when negotiating their first FTAs with Japan, theinfluence of those groups in FTA policymaking was limited or unidentified (Azuma
2007). This stems partly from most ASEAN companies’ failure to “see how theirbusinesses benefit from … integration” and, as a result, the ASEAN governments find“no pressure from ASEAN businesses to move faster on regional economic integration”,
as Severino (2006: 249) comments. These observations support a view that interest
group politics is neither necessarily an important factor for the proliferation of FTAs in
Southeast Asia, nor directly relevant to the FTA diffusion in the region, and that it is thestrong state that plays a central role in the bilateral trade negotiations (Aggarwal andKoo, 2005). In fact, as Sally (2004: 23-4) declared, Singapore’s trade policy was“effectively depoliticised,” and implemented in “technocratic fashion,” indicating that“trade bureaucracy, largely insulated from interest group pressure, can speedily
implement policy objectives.”
Although Singapore’s trade policymaking system is highly centralised by thegovernment, it does not have enough number of officials for multiple negotiations.
Partly to overcome the deficiency of FTA negotiators, ex-ambassadors are usually
appointed as the chiefs of its negotiation teams with larger countries. For instance,
Tommy Koh, former ambassador to the United States were appointed as the chief
negotiator for the FTA with the United States, while Lim Chin Beng, former
Ambassador to Japan and K. Kesabapany, former Ambassador to WTO, were chosen as
such in the case of Japan and Korea, respectively. These ex-ambassadors were highly
familiar with the partner countries and had a large number of government contacts in6those countries, and this system enabled Singapore to proceed rapidly with multiple
FTA negotiations at the same time.
As another way of overcoming its smaller size and limited influence in the region,
Singapore discovered Thailand as the only like-minded country in the region whichbegan to vigorously pursue FTAs after Thaksin Shinawatra came into power in January
2001. Their shared interest in trade liberalisation pushed the bilateral ties between
Singapore and Thailand into a “special strategic partnership” (cited in Straits Times 19
January 2005), founded on their enthusiasm in the pursuit of FTAs. Their partnership
was once instrumental in creating a regional atmosphere that pursued more active
engagement in trade and investment liberalization. For example, in September 2003,
Thaksin and Goh proposed that the projected date for realization of an ASEAN
Economic Community that would result in the formation of a single regional market
should be brought forward from 2020. Following this proposal, Goh worked toconvince the Philippines, while Thaksin did the same in Vietnam, resulting in these twocountries expressing agreement with the proposal (Business Times, 9 October 2003).
The group of countries supporting the proposal gradually expanded, resulting ultimately
in the earlier formation of a consensus. In this way, Singapore has been able to function
as a facilitator not merely in respect to bilateral FTAs, but also with regard to ASEAN
regional integration by overcoming its smaller size and limited influence in the region.
4. FTA diffusion in Southeast Asia and beyond
The proliferation of bilateral FTAs in Southeast Asia began when Singapore signed the
JSEPA in 2002, and Singapore hoped, as Singapore’s Prime Minister Goh expressed,that the JSEPA would “have a positive demonstration effect on other countries andwould hopefully give impetus towards the creation of more FTAs” (cited in Straits
Times 23 October 2000). JSEPA was expected to serve as a means for stimulating thetrade liberalisation movement in East Asia, which had fallen inert after the 1997 Asianfinancial crisis, and JSEPA was expected to function in this aim. However, when
Singapore activated its FTA negotiations in 2000 which included one with Japan and
New Zealand, it was viewed as insensitive since other ASEAN economies were
struggling to recover from the adverse effect of the financial crisis, and Singapore’s
image as a self-righteous member who cared little about its neighbours wasstrengthened. In fact, Singapore did not consult with ASEAN members about its policy
orientation towards FTAs, and some regional leaders became unhappy. For instance,
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir stated that “moves by Singapore to negotiate

7separate free-trade agreement, were worrisome” (cited in Straits Times, 27 February2001), while his Trade Minister, Rafidah Aziz noted that Malaysia was “not interested
in having bilateral FTAs with anybody” (cited in Straits Times, 15 March 2001).
Yet, Malaysia and Indonesia — believed to be the least enthusiastic nations aboutbilateral FTAs in the region — developed their interest in FTAs by studying all the pros
and cons of the JSEPA, according to Katsuhiko Umehara, then Director of METI, (citedin Terada 2003). A bilateral FTA involves the connotation of creating a partner, whereby
either country selects the other country in consideration of economic and politicalbenefits. Japan was already the most important partner for trade and investment as wellas the top aid donor for these two countries, and also because these countries recognizedthat Japan would have a vast market and purchasing power through an FTA, and theimportance of being able to enter tariff-free into the Japanese market where export items
don't have much competition, and within that recognition exists an expectation ofbringing in investment by securing a powerful market like Japan which promotes
technology transfer, and eventually leads to economic growth. As a result, Malaysia andIndonesia, as well as Thailand, the Philippines, and Brunei, have signed bilateral FTAs
with Japan, a movement which Vietnam is now joining. It is also Singapore that set a
precedent for Thailand and Malaysia to follow in terms of the choice of FTA partners
by signing other major economies such as the United States and Australia.
The FTA movement by Japan with Singapore as well as one with Korea in 1998-9 also
led China to feel isolated in the trade structure in East Asia, as Noboru Hatakeyama(2003) mentioned: “had it not been for the start of JSEPA, there would not have beensuch strong movements in this area towards FTAs, including those between ASEAN and
China.” China shortly joined the movement, but not bilaterally: China proposed an FTA
with ASEAN in October 2000, which was officially agreed on in November 2001,
conducive to the FTA diffusion being extended to Northeast Asia. Japan had notconsidered the establishment of an FTA with ASEAN as a single economic unit, and theagreement for the establishment of a Japan–ASEAN Comprehensive Economic
Partnership agreement in 2002 was a response to the China–ASEAN FTA proposal(Terada 2003). A Vietnamese official commented that Japan’s FTA proposal with
ASEAN in January 2002 seemed to be a hastily-put-together affair that was “all show”
and “little substance” and that its main purpose, not stated, was to counter the FTA
proposal floated by China to ASEAN (cited in Business World, 27 February 2002). With
the rapid development of China as an economic superpower, its readiness to open its

8huge market to foreign investors, and its aggressive economic movements into ASEAN,
Japan found it necessary sign FTAs with ASEAN and more bilateral ones withindividual members. China’s and Japan’s FTA approaches to ASEAN also contributed toSouth Korea developing an interest in pursuing the same path, as its Trade Minister
Hwang Doo-yun showed in Brunei, September 2002, leading to the final agreement on
the establishment of FTA with ASEAN in 2004. This ASEAN-centred FTA movement
has been joined by India and Australia-New Zealand later, culminating in the formationof five ‘ASEAN+1’ FTAs under implementations or negotiations, as discussed later.
These ‘domino effects’ of FTAs in East Asia occurred mainly because of FTAs’
exclusive nature and major benefits accrued, such as tariff eliminations at the expense of
the third party countries. The main negative effects of FTAs are considered to be adecrease in non-members' exports to members, the deterioration of the terms of trade fornon-members, and a reduction in members’ consumer welfare because of a trade
diversion to other members. That is, FTAs may cause non-members' exports to members
to be reduced by increasing trade among members through the removal of trade barriers
only among the members, which disadvantages non member exporters and may replace
more efficiently produced trade with less efficiently produced goods and services (Viner
1950 and Eithier 1988). In fact, the Pilipino interest in singing FTA with Japan is a fearon the possible trade diversion among its neighbours that ‘have started to gain wider
access to the Japanese market’ as former Economic Planning Secretary Solita Monsod
told in one of the Senate hearings on FTA: "the presence of these EPAs with [other
ASEAN members] and the absence of an EPA with us will inevitably result in at least
some amount of trade and investment diversion from us, which we can ill afford" (citedin Japan Times, 22 January 2008). Indonesia’s interest in FTA with Japan was also
spurred by the concern that Indonesian products would be disadvantaged in Japan which
already started negotiating bilateral FTAs with other Asian nations (Sato 2007).
However, since Singapore and Thailand are virtually the only nations in Southeast Asia
which have successfully signed multiple bilateral FTAs, the impacts of their FTAs in
the trade and investment flows in Southeast Asia are not so substantial. The smaller
portion of tariff elimination element in the JSEPA and other Singapore’s bilateral FTAs
does not bring so considerable a trade diversion effect to trading partners. Also,
Thailand’s bilateral FTAs with Australia, New Zealand and India, are “trade-light”
FTAs, and even the Thai-Japan FTA, which is much more significant than those FTAs
because of the total trade volumes, is seen “quite weak” mainly because of some9

exemptions on goods, especially agriculture, and restrictive rules of origin, as Sally(2007:1607-13) discusses. The number of Japanese companies that has used FTAs withsome Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia is also small due to complicatedprocedures and expensive costs in obtaining a certificate of origin document necessary
to prove their products are made in Japan. This is especially true in the case of
automobiles in which the companies need to obtain tens of thousands of certificates fortheir parts (Nihon Keizai Shimbun 25 June 2007). Average FTA utilization rates in
Singapore for its six FTAs (the United States, Australia, Japan, ASEAN, India andChina) are 37 percent in 2006 and 32 percent in 2007, respectively (IE Singapore 2007).
From the standard of European FTAs, utilization rates below 50 percent are seen ‘very
low’ (Baldwin 2007: 12). So, it is safe to state that although FTAs have been negotiatedand signed bilaterally and regionally in Southeast Asia, they are yet to be necessarily
well utilized and even acknowledged as a useful business facilitator by ASEAN
companies, causing the actual trade diversion not to be so substantial.
As quoted at the beginning, Prime Minister Lee believed it was Singapore that mainly
caused the proliferation of bilateral FTAs in Southeast Asia. Yet it can be concluded
that Japan’s interest in pursuit of bilateral FTAs can be a more significant causal factor
behind the proliferation of this kind of trading arrangement in Southeast Asia given thefollowing facts; 1) Japan was the largest trading partner, source of investment andtechnology, and aid provider to most of ASEAN members; 2) Japan pursued bilateral
FTAs most enthusiastically in Southeast Asia among extra-regional countries; and 3)
Japan is the first bilateral FTA partner to most of ASEAN members, and the only
bilateral FTA partner for Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam. For instance,
while Japan was generally seen as a favourite bilateral FTA partner in Southeast Asia,
China and Korea were not necessarily considered so; the Philippines, for instance,
continued to reject signing the bilateral early-harvest program, which was finally signed
only through Hu Jintao’s historic visit to Manila in April 2005, Vietnam was not happy
with a trading deal with China as its official expressed: ‘Chinese appliances are very
popular in Vietnam… given the oversupply pf electrical appliances in China, Chinese
manufactures will be able to sell more to Indochina and the rest of ASEAN under theagreement’ (Straits Times 18 May 2002). Thailand is also not expected to sign the
ASEAN-Korea FTA while Seoul continues to exclude rice from the tariff-reduction list
The Nation 10 December 2005). Rice is the product that which Prime Thaksin offered to
exclude from a bilateral FTA with Japan to make it much easier for Japan to sign it,
illustrating Thailand’s preference over Japan.

10Japan’s preference for bilateral rather than regional approaches in its FTA with ASEAN
can be evidenced by the fact that the actual negotiation of the Japan-ASEAN FTA wasnot commenced until April 2005, lagged much behind China and Korea. In themeantime, there emerged a view in Japan that as AFTA was not a customs union as
individual members pursue their own independent trade policy towards non-members
and it did not employ a common external tariff policy, the ASEAN-Japan FTA might
eventually be established through the consolidation of the existing bilateral FTAs
between Japan and ASEAN, and that there would be no need of the Japan-ASEAN FTA(JETRO 2007: 83).
With regards to ASEAN’s initial reactions to the ASEAN-Japan FTA, since ASEAN
members were at different stages of economic development, they were concerned thatJapan’s bilateral FTA approaches with individual ASEAN members could leave the lessdeveloped nations behind. With ASEAN leaders determined to stay economically united,
they have expressed suspicions over Japan’s intention with some claiming Japan’s
policy approaches could cause economic disintegration within ASEAN. Even during theprocess of drawing up the Joint Declaration in Phnom Penh in 2002, to be signed byPrime Minister Koizumi and ASEAN leaders, the ASEAN side became reluctant toaccept the initial Japanese draft that stressed bilateral ties. The declaration that was
eventually approved by the leaders was rephrased to call for the promotion of FTAs
between Japan and ASEAN (Yomiuri Shimbun, 6 November, 2002). It is curious thatseven ASEAN members signed or now negotiating bilateral FTAs with Japan despite
ASEAN’s concern about Japan’s bilateral FTA approach which would bring a negative
impact to ASEAN solidarity. According to Oike (2007: 15), a FTA negotiator from
MOFA, this was made possible by a closer bilateral relationship that Japan had alreadyforged with individual ASEAN members over decades through ODA and investment,
unlike any other country, and bilateral FTAs were considered by ASEAN members to bea way of securing or increasing economic and technical cooperation from Japan.
The establishment of Japan’s bilateral FTA policy, however, was partly attributed toSingapore’s diplomatic efforts. Singapore’s FTA approach to Japan initially invited only
“negative and, at best, skeptical” (Munakata 2001: 19) responses, as there was still
lingering opposition to changing trade policy direction by forging FTAs. Singapore’s
explanations about how it sought for a FTA during intensive talks in the first half ofNovember 1999 were judged to be persuasive and influential in changing Japan’s

11opposition to a FTA. According to Munakata (2001: 23), a senior MITI official involvedin the talks with Singapore, what especially struck the Japanese officials was that Japan
should also secure policy options to ‘complement the WTO;’ this approach helped Japanconclude that “negative reactions from other countries, if any, would be manageable”.
Despite the fact that Singapore was not interested in agricultural liberalization in Japan,
the visit by Singapore’s representatives to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and
Fishery in mid-1999 to clearly express Singapore’s intention on the treatment of Japan’s
agricultural products in the proposed FTA was also significant in Singapore’s FTA
courtship to Japan. The tactics Singapore employed were conducive to creating the viewin Japan that Singapore was actually one of the few nations that did not cause resistancefrom the farming sector in Japan. It is not an exaggeration to say that it was this factor
that made Japan decide to commence the official negotiations with Singapore as theirvery first FTA partner. At that time there was an atmosphere that Japan would not haveforged any FTA without successfully concluding the FTA negotiations with Singapore
among the Japanese policy intellectuals who supported the promotion of Japan’s
multilayered trade policy (personal interview with Naoko Munakata, 15 December 2004,
Tokyo). Singapore greatly assisted Japan in successfully launching its bilateral FTA
policy and this move was the beginning of FTA diffusion in Southeast Asia.
5. Can be Singapore’s FTA seen a model in Southeast Asia?
Whether the FTA diffusion in Southeast Asia was a result of followers’ interest inemulating the FTA model preceded by Singapore or their ambition to compete against is
another important question. It is true that bilateral FTAs in Southeast Asia rapidly
proliferated partly thanks to Singapore which successfully brought Japan into
liberalisation movement in Southeast Asia through helping it begin to pursue bilateral
FTAs, but the number of bilateral FTAs other ASEAN nations have signed is rather
limited. Following Singapore’s approach and singing FTAs with Japan, Australia and
New Zealand, Thailand now abandons FTA-oriented trade policy after the Thaksin
government was overthrown by a coup in 19 September 2006, and FTA negotiations
with the United States, the most significant FTA for Thailand, have been suspended
since then. The bilateral FTA partner for the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia
and Vietnam is so far only Japan, as mentioned above. Moreover, China and Korea, twolarger trading partners in Northeast Asia, have not so far shown an interest in
concluding a bilateral FTA with any nation in Southeast Asia other than Singapore. A
possible explanation behind a paucity of bilateral FTAs in the region is that Singapore’s

12economic structure is substantially different from that of other ASEAN members and its
FTA approach and structure, originated in JSEPA, are not seen as a model for their
FTAs.
Singapore’s population is small (over 4 million), and 99.9% of its imports are alreadytariff-free, meaning that there is little incentive for a partner country to eliminate tariffs
and grant Singapore preferential market access in return for the same by singing a FTA.
Thus it is not a puzzle that only six companies have exported their products to
Singapore by utilizing JSEPA, despite of approximately 3000 Japanese companies
operating in Singapore (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 25 June 2007). It has been thus forced
to convince potential partner countries of the merits of an FTA by incorporating
elements that go beyond trade in goods, such as liberalization of services and systems
for mutual recognition, and adopting preferential systems for investments from thepartner country. An important aspect of the appeal of Singapore as Japan’s first FTA
partner was the fact that it was possible to conclude an economic partnership agreement(EPA) with the nation that included numerous “new age” elements not dealt with by the
WTO, such as the cooperation in the area of small and medium enterprises, theprotection of intellectual property, harmonisation of standards in e-commercetransactions, and the facilitation of human movement for business purposes – what are
termed “WTO-plus” elements. Japan and Singapore are two of the few developed
economies in Asia, enjoying similar levels of economic development: Japan ranked fifthin terms of GNP per capita in the world, while Singapore ranked sixth in 2000, when the
FTA movement commenced. In a region characterized by the existence of numerous
developing nations, Singapore could be one of the few nations which could promote
EPA Japan could potentially conclude a “new age” economic partnership thatincorporated areas beyond the elimination of tariffs, as Prime Minister Goh (2002a) saidin his opening speech at the signing ceremony:
What we have signed is not a conventional free trade agreement focusing only
on the liberalization of trade in goods and services, and investment. This New
Age partnership also encompasses cooperation in key growth areas such as
info-comm technology, science and technology, financial services, tourism andhuman resource development. Such a broad-based and comprehensive
agreement will allow our two countries to reap maximum benefits, more thanthat from a traditional FTA. I believe that it will herald a new era of economic
ties between our two countries.

13

Yet one issue that labels JSEPA as unstable for other ASEAN members’ FTA with Japan
was the almost non-existent agricultural component. Singapore is not an agriculture-freenation; horticulture is fairly well-developed and Singapore is the third largest exporterof cut orchids (after Thailand and Malaysia) in which the main market is Japan. Theseorchids account for some $18 million (60%) of the exports in 2002 (Straits Times, 20
September 2003). However, there was only a 14 percent increase in the number ofJapan’s zero-tariff commitments with regards to agricultural products, and, moreover,
the result of its commitment to the agreement had been already reached within the WTO
framework. This meant that there was no agricultural product in JSEPA from which
Japan agreed to remove tariffs. In fact, ASEAN was also disappointed that JSEPA
allowed Japan to keep tariffs on more than 2,000 farm products, and through a series ofmeetings of the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership (AJCEP) Expert
Group, which consisted of senior officials in charge of trade and economic affairs inJapan and ASEAN, the ASEAN side consistently emphasized that an AJCEP must
include agricultural trade liberalization, representing one of major interests of ASEAN
concerning the agreement (personal interview with METI official, Singapore, 25 March
2002).
Yet, as Japan remained tied down by the politics of agricultural protection which caused
it to appear indecisive and unable to make a full commitment to trading relations with
ASEAN, instead of removing tariffs on agricultural products, Japan has granted importquotas and preferential lower tariffs to agricultural exporters, as was done in the case of
the FTA with Mexico on pork and orange juices, and this approach of dealing with
agricultural products in FTAs would make those bilateral FTAs much less effective interms of trade liberalization in Southeast Asia. Thailand, the world’s largest rice
exporter, agreed to exclude rice from its FTA with Japan, while the Philippines
conceded to resume negotiations for tariff elimination on sugar in four years. The
Japan–Malaysia FTA also excluded pineapples and milk products from Malaysia. As aresult, the FTAs between Japan and Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore,
Malaysia, and the Philippines promised to provide for immediate tariff-free treatment ofhigher percentage of Japanese exports to these countries, compared with their products’
tariff-free access to the Japanese market. Yorizumi Watanabe (2004), a former senior
FTA negotiator from MOFA, mentioned that JSEPA was viewed as providing Japan
with an “important intellectual springboard and model for the kind of FTAs and EPAs
that Japan should aim for”, but it is irony that the an area in which Japan modelled after
JSEPA for the other bilateral FTAs with ASEAN members was the exclusion of14

agricultural products.
6. ASEAN as a single player in East Asian competitive regionalism
As mentioned above, Singapore’s prosperity has been closely associated to theeconomic growth of Southeast Asia, as well as investment and trade with the major
economies outside the region. Thus, it is Singapore’s self-responsibility for encouraging
ASEAN to be more integrated. Before the 1990s, given trade structures werecompetitive rather than complementary with similar resource endowments and levels oftechnological development, which culminated in the production and export of similar
primary and labour-intensive products, Southeast Asian countries were not interested inregional integration for two decades after the birth of ASEAN in 1967. ASEAN
members shunned the term and concept of ‘integration’ and stuck instead to those of‘cooperation’, as seen in official meetings and declarations until the late 1980s. A
watershed decision in bringing the concept of regional integration to its cooperative
agenda was the establishment of AFTA, initiated at the Fourth ASEAN Summit inSingapore in January 1992. AFTA has sought to increase ASEAN’s competitive edge asa production base in the world market through eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers
within ASEAN and attracting more foreign direct investment to the region.
AFTA is now almost completed with 99.77% of the products in the CEPT (Common
Effective Preferential Tariff) Inclusion List of ASEAN-6 which has been brought down
to the 0-5% tariff range.4 The coverage has been expanded and the scope has been
widened: the AFTA plus measures include harmonization of standards, reciprocal
recognition of tests, and certification of products. The ASEAN Investment Area (AIA)
as a framework for promoting inflow of foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia wassigned in 1998, which binds ASEAN countries to gradually remove investment barriers,
liberalize investment rules and policies, grant national treatment, and open industries to
ASEAN investors by 2010 and to all investors by 2020.
Yet, although CEPT has been installed for the formation of AFTA, many examples canbe seen in the lack of willingness by member countries towards integration as ASEAN:
the exporting country’s certificates of origin, which acknowledges that a product is
CEPT certified, is not admitted in the importing country; necessary documents andformats are sometimes different for each country; and safety standards for electrical
Joint Media Statement of the Twentieth Meeting of the ASEAN Free Trade Area Council, Kuala
Lumpur, 21 August 2006
415

appliances are different as well (METI 2004). Also, there are a number of commodities
put on a Temporary Exclusion List, a General Exception List or a Sensitive List
(excluded from any liberalization program perpetually). AFTA has not been utilized
either. For instance, only 4.1 percent of Malaysia’s exports within AFTA enjoyed the
CEPT, while only 11.2 percent of Thailand’s imports were under the scheme (JETRO,
2003). Also, the AFTA plus measures such as AIA, ASEAN Framework Agreement on
Services (AFAS) or mutual recognition agreement do not make tangible progresses(Sally 2007: 1601). Accordingly, ASEAN leaders’ appeals for members’ commitment
to stronger regional cooperation and concerted efforts to facilitate regional integration
became clichés. Former ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino criticized theorganization for having no clear idea about future directions including economic field,saying that ASEAN has been “stuck in framework agreements, work programs andmaster plans” (cited in Business Times, 5 November 2002). Former Thai Prime Minister
Thaksin also described ASEAN as a “loose” grouping that “has to work together moreclosely or risk being seen as unwilling to take action” (cited in Straits Times, 10
November 2002).
A most fundamental structural problem that has caused the lack of interest in ASEAN’s
integration schemes is insufficient intra-regional links, conducive to AFTA and othereconomic integration measures being not so functional in terms of economic integration.
Singapore Foreign Minister Rajaratnam already mentioned in 1973: ‘… economic
realities require that regional cooperation must be wedded to external economic
participation if ASEAN is to achieve its objectives. It is not intra-regional trade andinvestment but extra regional trade and investment which will accelerate ASEAN’s
economic growth’ (quoted in Severino 2006: 257). In other words, cooperative schemesthat strengthen economic ties with larger extra-regional countries have been seen morepractically useful for their economic growth. Within ASEAN, nearly 80 percent of
ASEAN’s trade has been with non-ASEAN countries, and the exports of Indonesia andthe Philippines to the ASEAN region are less than 10 percent and 6 percent respectively,
while the combined populations of the two nations account for nearly 60 percent (Pang2007: 13-14). Furthermore, 90 percent of foreign direct investment has been from
non-ASEAN economies, and thus, a high degree of mutual interdependence among
regional countries, in terms of trade volumes for instance, is not necessarily a powerfulexplanatory variable behind the formation of regional integration at least in the case of
ASEAN. What has sustained ASEAN’s need for the further promotion of integration
schemes to attain economic growth is to secure external markets and elicit wider

16

economic cooperation from larger extra-regional states, rather than to share the benefits
to be accrued from intra-regional cooperation. In fact, Japanese FDIs in China increasedin the 1990s, and this trend became stronger as a result of China’s accession to the WTO
in 2001, spurring ASEAN, which was concerned that its appeal as an investment
destination had been damaged by the Asian financial crisis, to push ahead with regional
integration. ASEAN expected that this would also generate an impetus in Japan towards
an FTA with ASEAN as a unit. ASEAN believed that the conclusion of Japan’s FTA
with ASEAN as a unit would help stop the trend towards reduced investment by Japan(Lim 2003: 80).
Underlining these observations is a sense of crisis that, in negotiating FTA with large
countries such as Japan and China, unless ASEAN improves international
competitiveness by reinforcing the regional integration scheme and becoming an
attractive investment destination, ASEAN would bow to pressure from these large
countries and lose its influence. This sort of demand is based on a fear that ASEAN
would be marginalised in face of larger economies in the regional integration movement,
as was expressed by Prime Minister Goh (2001) who stated:… unless ASEAN, ourselves, get our act together, you may have a very wide
income gap between Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia … Then ASEAN will
become a marginal group within Asia. That is unstable for Asia. We will therefore
in ASEAN try and work to integrate all our economies … Long-term, we will havesome kind of East Asian Free Trade Area.’
These concerns then urged Goh to propose ASEAN communities, decided at theASEAN Summit meeting in Bali, October 2003, which include an ASEAN Economic
Community (AEC) aimed to fully deregulate the flow of people, commodities andcurrency as well as investment and service markets within the region by 2020 (later it
was brought forward to 2015). Furthermore, at the informal Economy Ministers’
meeting in April 2004, it was agreed upon to create a road map to promote integration in
eleven industries, including automobiles and electronics, which make up over half of all
trade. These proposals intend to change ASEAN’s perception as a group of fragmented,
relatively small economies unable to enjoy benefits from economies of scale inproduction despite its integration efforts through the AFTA scheme.
Ironically, while ASEAN’s integration programs such as AFTA got stuck in the mire, it

17was China, formerly seen as its ideological threat, which brought an idea of dealing
with ASEAN as a single trading partner and pushed ASEAN’s intraregional cooperation
forward. As mentioned before, in 2000, Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, partly
influenced by the earlier move of Japan with Korea and Singapore, surprised ASEAN
and East Asia with the proposal of a China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, the first
trading arrangement in the region to be negotiated with ASEAN collectively as one
entity. A major development that caused China to consider good regional relations with
ASEAN as strategically significant was a containment policy that the Bushadministration intended to promote against China. China is also said to view ASEAN as
an ally in the face of intensifying U.S. pressure over the revaluation of the yuan (Straits
Times, 10 October 2003). Those China’s active diplomatic approach to ASEAN as its
willingness to engage more closely with the region through the association can also be
exemplified by China’s agreement at its 2002 meeting with ASEAN to avoid using force
to settle any dispute in the South China Sea, a major source of confrontation between
China and some member states, such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
China’s immense interest in this FTA can also be explained by what it has seen in theopportunities that ASEAN’s market of 580 million people and rich natural resources
could offer. Moreover, China has been considered to be savvy in foreign policy with its
basic approach to the region focusing on economic cooperation and mutual gains todispel the myth of a “China threat”. To some extent, it has even become an engine of
growth for the region, judging by the trade surpluses most ASEAN countries enjoy inrelation to it. Thus, to show its ‘sincerity and goodwill’, China offered to unilaterally
open its agricultural market to some ASEAN members five years head of the opening of
their markets to China. In fact, China’s FTA with ASEAN is based on more than justreciprocity as we see China giving more than it receives – in according MFN status toVietnam, Laos and Cambodia before they even join the WTO.
One important element in competitive regionalism in Southeast Asia is that two
different types of FTAs are promoted by Japan and China, and the partner which theypresented these different types of FTAs is the same partner, ASEAN. Japan prefers to
use the term of EPA rather than FTA to pursue more comprehensive economic
arrangement, covering WTO-plus issues including investment rules or mutual
recognition standards to facilitate service-related business. Japan’s FTA model is basedon the JSEPA (JETRO 2007: 52). Meanwhile, the China-ASEAN FTA intends not toremove but lower tariff rates (less than 5 percent) on almost all commodities (ASEAN

18

Secretariat 2001), and China and ASEAN, both categorised as developing countries,
were entitled to utilise the enabling clause which indicates the exclusion of the article 24
application. The China-ASEAN FTA was thus allowed to incorporate the Early Harvest
Program under which, in 1 October 2003, China started removing all tariffs on 600
agricultural exports of ASEAN such as vegetables, tropical fruits, meat, dairy products,
ornamental plants, timber, and palm oil (Wong and Chan 2003: 511), which Japan
found tremendous difficulties liberalizing. These concessions on the part of China imply
ASEAN’s importance in China’s foreign policy, instrumental in eliminating ASEAN’sconcern about China as an FTA partner.
However, the more difference lies in the ways of implementations. Japan takes theso-called single-undertaking approach, meaning that every issue in the agreement isnegotiated at the same time, while China’s negotiation model is based on gradualapproach in which trade liberalisation on goods is negotiated first, and then followed by
the services and investments. Also, Japan’s FTAs promise to remove most of the tariffs
immediately after the agreements become effective, while China’s approach put the
products into different categories of tariff ratios and remove or reduce those tariffs
gradually in accordance with these different categories of products. Thus, theelimination of higher tariffs would take longer in China’s FTAs, and, importantly, this ismodelled after the AFTA approach. This means China’s approach was more familiar andcomfortable for ASEAN, which made it substantially easy to conclude their FTA
negotiations. Japan, as a developed nation, should meet the requirements of Article 24
of GATT, which stipulates the mutual abolishment of tariff of 90% or more for all trade
within ten years, based on the principle of reciprocity, and ASEAN needed to abide bythis rule in the FTA negotiations with Japan, unlike the case of the FTA with China, as
mentioned above. Now that South Korea’s FTA with ASEAN takes China’s model interms of implementation of liberalization with the products categories and initialliberalisation on goods, Japan’s comprehensive and WTO-consistent approach does notwell prevail in Southeast Asia, which may cause the completion of regional trade andinvestment liberalization to be delayed. Give the existence of ASEAN’s newcomers
such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, whose economies are less developed
than the economies of the older members, ASEAN prefers China’s gradual and longer
timeframe for implementing liberalization to accommodate the wide gaps among
ASEAN countries in their level of economic development. Japan has now understood
this concern and incorporated ‘cooperation chapter’ in its FTAs with ASEAN and its
individual members, to create better infrastructures in ASEAN such as a more19

liberalized distribution and transportation system and deregulated custom procedures.
This process was now accompanied by Japan’s commitment towards assisting theASEAN integration with a focus on the development cooperation on behalf of the lessdeveloped
members,to
supplement
Japan’scomprehensive
andmore-developed-nation-oriented approach. This cooperative element in Japan’s FTAs isnothing to do with discrimination which traditional FTAs naturally carry, serving to help
developing countries in Southeast Asia be more confidently committed to liberalisation
which would also benefit its rival FTA players in the region such as China and Korea.
The proliferation of bilateral and regional FTAs creating a dense network of the majorcountries in East Asia could result in a “spaghetti bowl” effect in which a large numberof rules of origin with specific standards and involving specific procedures will be
formulated, and different rules will be applied to a single commodity (Bhagwati 1995),
and multinational companies find the FTAs difficult to use. So the momentum towards a
regional integration to prevent this spaghetti bowl effect may be generated especially inthe business community in East Asia, especially in Japan.
Yet, most ASEAN members do not regard a wider regional integration scheme beyond
ASEAN+1 framework such as an East Asian FTA as a ‘useful purpose’, partly because
the three Northeast Asian economies, China, Japan and Korea, account for nearly 90 per
cent of the total East Asian economy and ASEAN would be marginalized within the
FTA, as former Singapore Trade Minister George Yeo stated (Business Times, 15
September 2002).ASEAN which inevitably needs to depend on external economies for
its growth through FDI and exports, as argued above, probably see fewer problems in
ASEAN+1 FTA approach as it places both ASEAN and its trading partner on the equal
footing. Yet, ASEAN would be concerned about being submerged into a larger
arrangement or organisation, and thus ASEAN hopes to maintain the status-quo.
Currently, five “ASEAN+1” FTAs with Japan, China, South Korea, India andAustralia/New Zealand have being established around that hub while FTAs have not yet
been established between any of the five “+1” major economies in the region,
representing that ASEAN’s self-assertion as a main player in the East Asian integration
schemes, be it the ASEAN+3 or ASEAN+6 approach, has been so far respected by extra
regional countries. The establishment of five FTAs with ASEAN means that those extra
regional countries would not need to pursue bilateral FTAs with ASEAN individual
members anymore, indicating Southeast Asia now turning from the era of bilateralism tothat of regionalism.

20

7. Conclusion
This chapter focused on the role of Singapore to test the validity of competitive
regionalism framework in the case of the diffusion of bilateral FTAs in Southeast Asia.
Singapore’s aggressive pursuit of FTA policy partly contributed to the initiation of a‘domino effect’, with more neighbouring countries extending the circle of FTAs in
Southeast Asia and beyond. Yet, as this chapter highlighted, most of those ASEAN
member chose Japan as its first and only bilateral FTA partner, representing Japan’s
distinctive status as the most significant trading and investment partner as well as aid
giver in Southeast Asia. So, the diffusion was mainly attributed to Japan whose initial
FTA strategy was based on its strong bilateral economic ties to promote bilateral rather
than regional FTAs, and Singapore’s role in this process was to help Japan to startpursuing bilateral FTAs in the region.
Bilateral trading agreements are effective for strengthening mutual economic relations
through increased trade or investment interaction by facilitating mutual economic
benefits and business transactions between two countries much more considerably than
through a regional and global approach. Yet, those impacts seem to be exaggerated in
the case of Southeast Asia, as seen in lower utilisation of FTAs by ASEAN companies.
Therefore, the trade diversion, a factor that is supposed to cause the competitive elementin the FTA diffusion, is not so significant. This means the business sectors in Southeast
Asia would not be much bothered by the negative impacts of bilateral FTAs signed byother countries, partly accounting for the less involvement of business sectors in trade
policymaking in the region as well.
Significantly, the bilateral FTA diffusion in Southeast Asia has now extended beyond
Southeast Asia. The ASEAN+1 approach was initiated by China’s proposal of an FTA
with ASEAN in October 2000, following which Japan proposed its own FTA with
ASEAN in January 2002. The approach has since been adopted by South Korea, India,
and Australia/New Zealand, with the result that ASEAN today functions as a hub for thefive ASEAN+1 FTAs, either already concluded or under negotiation. Yet, thecompletion of East Asia FTA depends on ASEAN’s willingness. ASEAN as a loose
group of relatively small economies needs external markets and investments for thedevelopment and organisational survival, but its institutional significance would bediminished if a larger arrangement, in which ASEAN could be marginalised, developed
rapidly. This concern would be a major obstacle to the establishment of region-wide
integration in East Asia. External larger countries such as Japan and China acknowledge

21the merit of ASEAN’s economic solidarity to be attained through numerous integration
schemes on behalf of their own economic and strategic interests, as seen in their careful
supports for ASEAN’s integration programs. The completion of ASEAN Economic
Community is thus an initial step towards the eventual formation of the East Asian
FTA.

22

Appendix（１）Singapore (2006)
Partners

Year

Trade Volume

Signed（Export+Import，%）

FDI Volume (%)*2

Issue Scope *3

*1

NZ

2001

0.5+0.1

0.6(S)( I) (E)

Japan

2002

5.5+8.3

1.1(S)(I)( Ec)

Australia

2003

3.7+1.5

4.6(S)(I)( L)( Ec)

EFTA

2003

0.3+0.8USA

2004

9.9+12.5

Jordan

2005

India

2005

2.8+2.0

1.4(S)(L)South Korea

2006

3.2+4.3

1.5(S)( I)( E)( Ec)Panama2006(S)( I)
4.1(S)( I)(E)( Ec)(S)( I)(S)( I)*1 Statistics Singapore, “EXTERNAL TRADE”,
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos/statsT-trade.pdf
Accessed on 09/05/2008*2

Statistics

Singapore,“TOTAL

DIRECTINVESTMENTABROAD

BY

COUNTRY/REGION 2001-2006”,
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/economy/biz/investmentabroad.pdf
Accessed on 09/05/2008*3 List regarding the issues covered by the specific FTA: (I) Investment; (S) Services; (E)Environment; (L) Labor; and (Ec) Economic Cooperation.
Singapore’s Official FTA Website
http://www.iesingapore.gov.sg/wps/portal/FTA
Accessed on 10/05/200823

（２）Thailand
Partners

Year

Trade Volume

Signed（Export+Import，%）

FDI Volume (%)*5

Issue Scope *6

0.5(S)( I) ( Ec)

39.7(S) (I)(Ec)(L)*4Australia

2004

Japan

2007

NZ

2005

India

2003

Bahrain

2003

Peru

2005

14.2+24.1(S) (I)(Ec)
0.5(S) (I)*4. ASEAN-JAPAN CENTRE, “External Trade Value of Japan, ASEAN, and China(2003)”,
http://www.asean.or.jp/GENERAL/statistics/statistics05/pdf/2-1.pdf
Accessed on 27/05/2008
ASEAN-JAPAN CENTRE, “Japan, ASEAN, and China’s Top Ten Trade Partners(2003)”,
http://www.asean.or.jp/GENERAL/statistics/statistics05/pdf/2-3.pdf
Accessed on 27/05/2008*5. ASEAN-JAPAN CENTRE, “Investment to Thailand (2004)”,
http://www.asean.or.jp/GENERAL/statistics/statistics05/pdf/4-7-9.pdf
Accessed on 27/05/2008*6. Department of Trade Negotiation, “FREE TRADE AGREEMENT”,
http://www.thaifta.com/englisAccessed on 27/05/2008h/index_eng.html
Accessed on 27/05/2008

24

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GIARI Working Paper Vol. 2008-E-10,
June.30 2008
Published by Waseda University Global COE Program
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