Beyond the Mekong | Economy | Southeast Asia

ASEAN’s Trade With Europe: The Costs and Trials of Doing Business

A conversation with Chris Humphrey, executive director of the EU-ASEAN Business Council.

Container ships loading and unloading at Port Klang, the largest commercial port in peninsular Malaysia.

The European Union is ASEAN’s third largest trading partner after China and the United States and its third largest source of direct foreign investment, with last year’s total merchandise trade reaching about $320 billion.

It’s a formidable number, which both sides would like to improve upon and the EU is negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines after successfully signing such deals with Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Chris Humphrey, executive director of the EU-ASEAN Business Council, spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about the status of current FTA negotiations and issues including counterfeit goods, labor rights, environmental standards, and protectionism.

In regards to counterfeit goods, he noted that ASEAN’s top six economies – Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam – lost as an estimated $13 billion to illicit tobacco products over the past two years. Indonesia accounted for more than $5 billion of those losses while more than half of cigarettes sold in Malaysia were illicit – making it the only market where illicit cigarettes outnumbered legal sales.

“So there are things that need to be resolved.........

© The Diplomat