KJC Korea
Journal Central

One of the main goals of ASEAN to enhance connectivity and economic integration is to harmonize standards and regulations, and implement MRAs. Developed countries have been providing support to address challenges faced by ASEAN associated with the harmonization of standards and regulations. While there is a clear relationship between standards and development assistance to trade, the explicit relevance of standards to Aid for Trade (AfT) is under-explored. This study conducts a comparative analysis of the approaches that different countries adopt for standards cooperation with ASEAN. The purpose of this study is to examine how standards are utilized to support trade and development of ASEAN and how cooperation is positioned in the context of AfT. Cases of the EU, Germany, U.S., Australia, and South Korea are evaluated to investigate how major countries cooperate with ASEAN in the area of standardization. We found that standards cooperation approaches are geared towards the harmonization of standards and regulations, and capacity building. These measures are relevant to AfT in that they contribute to the achievement of trade related goals including trade facilitation and the reduction of technical barriers to trade, and thus corresponding to the AfT categories ‘trade policy and regulations’ and ‘productive capacity building’. Besides cooperation in traditional industries, initiatives on digital trade have emerged as a new area for cooperation that can promote ASEAN’s competitiveness in the new trade environment. This study contributes to the theoretical discussions on AfT, identifies practical challenges, and makes suggestions for future standards cooperation with ASEAN.

This study aims to examine the problems for enhancing the export competitiveness of the Korean automobile industry in the era of CEPA in Indonesia by comparing and analyzing the export competitiveness of the Korean and Japanese automobile industries in Indonesia. In this study, we analyzed the Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA), Comparative Advantage by Country (CAC), and Export Similarity Index (ESI). The analysis results showed that Korea is in a comparative heat state compared to Japan in the main export items such as passenger cars (8703), freight cars (8704), automobile chassis (8706), automobile parts/arrangements (8708), and motorcycles (8711). Japan has a comparative advantage in finished car sector of automobiles, vans, freight cars and motorcycles, as well as in the parts/equipment sectors that support the assembly production of overseas production bases. In particular, Korea has generally inferior competitiveness of most items in the Indonesian market, but in contrast, Japan has far superior competitiveness in the Indonesian market than the global market in most items. Meanwhile, the group with the most intense export competition in the Indonesian market in 2019 was the Japan-India group for HS87 items, and the German-Japanese group for HS8703 items. In the Indonesian automobile market, the so-called “four-party competition” has been formed between Japan, the UK, India and Germany, while relatively low competition between Korea and Japan has been formed. Therefore, the Korean automobile industry should enhance the competitiveness of exports to Indonesia with the entry into force of Korea-Indonesia CEPA, and learn thoroughly about the past experience of Hyundai Motor's failure to advance into Indonesia and the success factors of Japanese automobiles in Indonesia, and actively seek ways to advance into the local market, such as establishing a joint venture for local production of eco-friendly electric vehicles and developing a local specialization model.

The WTO multilateral trading system have been weakened, while the regionalism has proliferated since the creation of the WTO. In this study we examine the aspects of the U.S.’s exit from multilateral trading system, and specify the time of exit. For this purpose, we use the ‘exit, voice, and loyalty’ concepts proposed by Hirschman. According to our analysis, the U.S. reduced substantially the role as a supplier of multilateral trade rules after the stalemate of the Doha Development Agenda with the diminished loyalty to the WTO multilateral system. Since then, mega-FTAs, plurilateral agreements or bilateral agreements have taken a central role in further liberalization of trade. The U.S.’s exit as a consumer of multilateral trade rules began with the revival of aggressive unilateralism and the blockage of the appointment of the Appellate Body members of the WTO in Trump Administration. It implies that the U.S. refuse the dispute settlement system of the WTO. The aggressive unilateralism based on Section 301, Super 301 and Special 301 in 1970’s and 1980’s should be considered not as a real exit, but as a threat of exit from the GATT multilateral system. It was a measure adopted by the U.S. to promote the effects of their voices in the Tokyo Round and the Uruguay Round. The US-Canada FTA and NAFTA, the first meaningful preferential trade agreements since World War II, used as a leverage for the beginning and the closure of the Uruguay Round. The Competition Liberalization policy taken in Bush administration cannot be considered as an exit from the WTO multilateral system. Most of the countries with which the U.S. concluded or negotiated a bilateral FTA were economically unimportant underdeveloped countries. The ultimate objective of the Competitive Liberalization policy was the conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda negotiation.