INTRODUCTION

Beginning this year, the ASEAN Secretariat is making the consolidated list of the 2001 CEPT[1] Package available in the ASEANWEB for free download. This is in order to make information about the CEPT Scheme as widely available as possible to Member Countries, the business community, researchers and academics, etc.  The files are in Microsoft Excel format to enable users to analyse the data. The Lists are classified by chapter as well as by country.

This eight edition of the Tariff Reduction Programmes under the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) Scheme contains the ASEAN countries’ CEPT import duties and tariff reduction schedules starting from year 2001 up to year 2010. In addition, the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariff rates of all Member Countries are included, so that used in conjunction with the CEPT rates, to help identify products where preferences are provided. The ending years of the tariff reduction schedules differ from country to country based on the date when they began their implementation of the CEPT Agreement. For the six initial signatories[2] to the CEPT Agreement, the ending year is 2003. It is 2006 for Viet Nam; 2008 for Lao PDR and Myanmar; and 2010 for Cambodia.  The publication also indicates the products that are not yet included in the CEPT, i.e. the temporary exclusion list (TEL), sensitive list (SL) and general exception list (GE) with their corresponding MFN tariff rates.

The commodity classification used is based on the World Custom Organizations’ (WCO) Harmonised Commodities Description System (HS) 1996 format. To provide accurate and current information about tariffs, we have based the information on the latest CEPT legal enactments and on the most current Customs Excise and Duty Publications for MFN tariffs. The detailed list of references for all tariff rates is shown below. However, please note that some recent changes to MFN tariffs of Member Countries may not have been included in this edition. On certain occasions, MFN rates may be reduced below the legally enacted CEPT rates. Under these circumstances, the lower (MFN) rate would prevail.

Please note that information on MFN rates of Thailand is in a separate file. This is because Thailand uses two different tariff nomenclatures for its CEPT and MFN rates.  We have included both “CEPT type 1” and “CEPT type 2” tariff rates of Thailand.  “CEPT type 1” shall be applied to products with a Certificate of Origin “Form D” issued by ASEAN Member States and eligible for CEPT concessions based on the principle of reciprocity. For those products which are eligible for PTA concession, Thailand will apply type 2 rates.

Please note that some tariff lines of Viet Nam, which are currently in alpha-numeric form (e.g. 8704.23.90A, 8704.23.90B), are under review.  The appropriate tariff codes will be assigned once Viet Nam has finalised its tariff nomenclature.

The tariffs in the table are in ad-valorem rates except for some special cases where specific duties are employed and where the tariffs are therefore in local currency units.  These are reflected in the MFN column and are marked by an asterisk (*).