ACTION: Comments on WTO Briefing Paper

Forwarded at the request of Joe Hillings.

Encl: The following persons please review the attachment found at the end of
this document.
Ken Lay, David Merrill, Mike Dahlke, Rebecca McDonald, Paul Adair, Michael
L. Brown, Carey Sloan, John Fugh, Manual Gallego, Darrell Kinder. Thank
you.

---------------------- Forwarded by Lora Sullivan/Corp/Enron on 11/15/99
10:40 AM ---------------------------

Tina Valdecanas <tvaldecanas@usasean.org< on 10/29/99 05:15:48 PM
To:
cc: (bcc: Joe Hillings/Corp/Enron)

Subject: ACTION: Comments on WTO Briefing Paper

TO: US-ASEAN Business Council Members
FROM: Tina Valdecanas
P: 202/289.1911, ext. 230; e-mail tvaldecanas@usasean.org
Web-site: http://www.us-asean.org
DATE: 29 October 1999
RE: ACTION: Comments on WTO Briefing Paper

Summary: The attached draft is being circulated among US-ASEAN Business
Council members for input. The briefing paper will be presented to the
ASEAN Trade Ministers who will be attending the WTO Ministerials in
Seattle in November/December 1999. Please forward comments to me by cob
Friday, November 19, 1999. End Summary.

The US-ASEAN Business Council is developing a briefing paper for the
ASEAN Trade Ministers who will be attending the World Trade Organization
Ministerials in Seattle, WA later this year. Trade representatives from
Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand
are expected to attend.

To ensure that member concerns are addressed in the paper, please send
comments/suggestions regarding the below draft to me at
tvaldecanas@usasean.org by c.o.b. Friday, November 19, 1999. I will
circulate a final draft the week of November 22. Thank you.

*****

US-ASEAN Business Council Briefing Paper

PRIORITY BUSINESS ISSUES

prepared in advance of the
WTO Ministerials
November 1999

A group of 400 of America's leading companies, the US-ASEAN Business
Council prides itself as being dedicated to effectively strengthen
bilateral and US-ASEAN relations through strong economic and commercial
ties. The Council is committed to promoting open and free trade globally
with the belief that such an environment is of benefit to all. Open and
transparent markets translate into economic growth and the opportunity
to raise the standards of living of the world's people. In addition to
providing a larger range of goods and services, rules-based, open
markets allow countries to be more competitive in the international
arena.

In this spirit, the Council's members offer this briefing paper as a
compilation of the commercial issues we consider of highest priority at
the onset of the new round of the WTO negotiations. This is not a
comprehensive roster, rather attention has been given to issues which:

* Hold priority status for American businesses seeking to expand
their trade and investment ties in ASEAN; and,

* Have been advanced significantly through the APEC process and
have a realistic prospect of being concluded within the three year
timeframe.

PRIORITY ISSUES

Accelerated Tariff Liberalization: The agreement reached at the recent
APEC Leaders' Meeting in Auckland has provided the critical mass
necessary for action on accelerated tariff liberalization in eight
priority sectors within the framework of the WTO. Continued tariff
reduction will have wealth creating and efficiency enhancing effects on
global trade. The end result would be a larger international market that
will encourage the continued foreign investment and global capital
flows.

Agriculture: A robust global food system that efficiently links food
production, food processing and consumption, is vital to continuing
development world-wide. Council members support initiatives to remove
all export subsidies and to reduce tariffs on agricultural products. The
Council also supports activities to ensure market-access for
agricultural products enhanced with the use of biotechnology. Use of
this technology provides a safe and sufficient food supply while
ensuring the safety of food sources and environment through strong and
transparent science-based domestic regulatory systems.

Customs issues: The Council is encouraged by the positive progress being
made in the area of Customs reform and liberalization. In the context of
this on-going cooperation, members hope to see the adoption of the
International Express Carriers Conference (IECC) Guidelines for Customs
and encourage governments to continue to address: electronic
pre-clearance in a paperless environment; twenty-four hour customs
operation; elimination of export clearance procedures; higher deminimus
levels; transshipment without processing; and payment of duties and
taxes for imports at defined periods rather than upon arrival. Each of
these actions would improve the speed or lower the expense of shipment.
Countries that have adopted measures along the lines of the above have
reduced the bottleneck effect that Customs can create and have improved
the competitive environment for companies within their borders. This
attracts investment, which creates jobs and wealth.

E-commerce: In the past few years, electric or "E-Commerce" has expanded
the depth and breadth of global commerce. Although the physical
infrastructure is quickly spreading to support such transactions, the
legal and regulatory framework is still being developed. Both suppliers
and consumers of E-commerce will benefit from an improved legal
environment and measures to benchmark policies and best practices in
member economies. To ensure that the industry continues to develop, the
WTO should give special priority to adopting a permanent moratorium on
the imposition of duties on electronic commerce.

Energy: With growing demand for energy and calls for clean and efficient
use of resources, the WTO should look to promote the diversification of
energy supply and a market-driven energy infrastructure development.
Well-functioning markets, greater energy efficiency and information
flows among market participants will aid in sustainable and equitable
growth globally. The WTO should support initiatives like the APEC
Natural Gas Initiative signed by the Energy Ministers at Okinawa last
year and the ongoing policy dialogues to address energy service-oriented
issues related to the development, extraction, production, distribution,
marketing, consumption of all energy products..

ITA: The US private sector applauds the advances made under the 1997
International Technology Agreement (ITA) and looks forward to the
beginning of negotiations for the second phase of the agreement. While
the November 1998 ITA II package does not meet all of our expectations,
the Council's members are confident agreements resulting from the
successful passage of ITA II will increase product coverage, encourage
progress on the elimination of non-tariff measures, and lead to the
harmonization of tariff classification of products already covered in
previous negotiation rounds. The continued review and revision of the
ITA's product coverage will further expand and distribute the benefits
of information technology globally, and is a fundamental necessity for
such a fast-paced, dynamic industry.

Although the Council would encourage discussion of ITA-II during the
upcoming round of WTO negotiations, we believe that the ITA-II
negotiations should remain independent and should be concluded as soon
as possible.