The ASEAN Investment Area, agreed upon in 1998, provides for national
treatment of investments from other ASEAN countries. The only exceptions
are the sectors in "sensitive lists" or "temporary exclusion lists". The Vientiane
agreements urge the transfer of sectors from the sensitive to the temporary
exclusion lists beginning in 2005. Starting in 2004, restrictive investment
measures were to be progressively removed from the temporary exclusion lists
until they are eliminated by the end of 2010 for the ASEAN-6, 2013 for
Vietnam, and 20 15 for Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, targets that are in
the original AlA agreement. The degree of protection of intellectual property
rights is increasingly important in investment decisions. Beyond trademarks
and patents, the ASEAN countries were to cooperate, starting at the end of
2004, in copyright information exchange and enforcement.