Japan hopes to sign EPAs with as many as 16 countries in East Asia, including member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations like the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos, as well as China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. The world’s second largest economy, next to the United States, already signed bilateral trade agreements with Singapore in 2002, Malaysia in 2005, Philippines in 2006, and Thailand, Brunei and Indonesia in 2007.

The Japanese government began negotiations for EPAs with South Korea in 2003, ASEAN as a whole in 2005, and Vietnam, India and Australia in 2007. It is currently in the preliminary study or exploratory stages of talks with China and New Zealand, and at the same time exploring a trilateral Japan-China-South Korea deal as a model for the targeted East Asia regional agreement, the main objective of which in pursuing these EPA is to ensure that Japanese transnational corporations will be able to compete and gain free access to the markets, labor and natural resources of the region.

Among them, the relation with ASEAN is of great importance. A FTA agreement between the ASEAN and Japan is expected to be inked this May. The FTA agreement will mostly cover goods while most services and investment are already covered by each member of ASEAN and Japan. In addition, if approved, tariffs on 90 per cent of goods imported by Japan from ASEAN will be reduced to zero while more than 70 items of Thai goods worth about US$53 million could be exported to that country.