More importantly, AFTA has made scant progress on non-tariff and
regulatory barriers, far bigger obstacles to intra-ASEAN trade than
tariffs. AFAS commitments are sometimes barely stronger than in the
WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), sometimes
weaker (as in basic telecom services), but mostly fall short of existing
national practice. They have not had a net liberalizing effect. Nor have
AIA commitments. The ACIA has not yet been ratified by several
ASEAN countries. Implementation of the ASEAN Single Window
has been delayed. ASEAN is not meeting its deadlines to abolish
quantitative restrictions and other NTBs in goods trade, or even to
compile adequate inventories of them (also true of services barriers).
Harmonization of technical regulations and product standards
lags behind. Also, AFTA does not cover government procurement,
which remains highly discriminatory in all ASEAN countries except
Singapore.