ASEAN, RoK agree on transposition of AKFTA product specific rules

An overview of the joint session (Photo: VNA)

ASEAN member states and the Republic of Korea (RoK) have reached a consensus on the transposition of ASEAN-RoK Free Trade Agreement (AKFTA) Product Specific Rules from the Harmonised System Codes HS 2017 to HS 2022.

The agreement was reached at a three-day joint session of ASEAN and Korean experts, which wrapped up in the northern province of Quang Ninh on March 27.

This was an important conference towards the goal of converting nearly 7,000 tariff lines of the product specific rule (PSR) transposition list in the AKFTA from codes HS 2017 to HS 2022.

Min Ho Son, head of the RoK delegation, said that ensuring goods have a clear origin will help facilitate import and export and enjoy preferential tax rates.

Trinh Thi Thu Hien, Coordinator of the ASEAN-Korea PSR Transposition Project, said that the countries reviewed chapters 1 to 97 of the PSR list and agreed on the origin criteria for the majority of tariff lines.

On that basis, the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade will develop and issue a circular guiding the implementation of AKFTA rules of origin to update the PSR list, thereby creating favourable conditions for taking advantage of the agreement’s special preferential tax rates.

Tran Minh Trang, head of the Vietnamese delegation, stressed that the transposition work requires high concentration and consensus of the ASEAN countries and the RoK.

According to the World Customs Organisation, the HS code is regularly updated every 5 years to ensure compatibility with international commercial types and needs./.