Movement of Natural Persons : Facilitating Services Integration in ASEAN

Movement of Natural Persons (MNP) refers to temporary presence of individuals in another country in order to supply services and is one of the four ways through which services can be supplied across international borders, also known as “Mode 4”. ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) signed the ASEAN Agreement on Movement of Natural Persons (MNP) on 19 November 2012 in Cambodia while the schedules of commitments annexed to this agreement were endorsed by the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Council on 10 April 2013 in Brunei Darussalam. The scope of this agreement covers business visitors, intracorporate transferees (ICT), contractual service supplier (CSS) with the following objectives: i. provide rights and obligations in relation to the MNP as set out in ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS). ii. facilitate the movement of natural persons engaged in the conduct of trade in goods, trade in services and investment. iii. establish streamlined and transparent procedures for immigration applications. iv. protect the integrity of Member States’ borders and protect the domestic labour force and permanent employment in the territories of Member States. The MNP Agreement only deals with the temporary movement of persons to other countries to provide services. It mainly covers business visitors, contractual service suppliers, intra-corporate transferees as well as other categories as may be specified in the Schedules of Commitments of ASEAN Member States. The MNP Agreement does not provide for permanent entry by such persons, nor does it provide for movement of all types of persons (e.g. unskilled labour) even on a temporary basis. The MNP agreement also does not apply to employment measures, permanent residency or citizenship. 1. MNP Agreement 2. ASEAN Member State Individual Schedules of Commitments For more information, please send an email to aimo@asean.org

Source: asean.org