Marina Bay in Singapore (Photo: AFP/VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – EU lawmakersapproved a free trade agreement (FTA) with Singapore on February 13.
About two-thirds of the EuropeanParliament's members voted in favour of the FTA, which could become effective inmonths, as well as a related agreement on how to settle disputes betweenforeign investors and states.
The pact has been nine years in the making.Negotiations ended in 2014, but as protests mounted against other trade accords,it ended up being sent to the European Court of Justice for review. The courtruling resulted in the accord being split in two: the free trade part and theseparate investment-protection deal, which will still need ratification fromnational parliaments.
The free trade pact will follow a deal theEU launched at the start of February with Japan and will be the EU's first witha member of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The EU, which also has a deal with theRepublic of Korea, remains interested in a trade deal with ASEAN as a whole,after talks were shelved in 2009. In the meantime, the bloc has concluded anagreement with Vietnam, is in negotiations with Indonesia and has held talkswith three other members.
The EU is Singapore's second biggest tradingpartner for goods and largest for services. For the EU, Singapore ranks 14thamong trading partners for goods and fourth for services. More than 10,000EU-based companies use Singapore as a hub for Southeast Asia.
The deal will lead to the removal of EUtariffs on Singaporean goods within five years and remove Singapore's fewcustoms duties for EU exports. It will see recognition in Singapore of EUstandards and safety tests in electronics, pharmaceuticals and car parts.
It will open up Singapore service sectorssuch as transport and telecoms to European businesses, who will also get betteraccess to contracts to supply the Singapore government.-VNA
VNA
