Malaysia wants Asean to become single economic group by 2015

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Malaysia wants Asean to become single economic group by 2015

(AP Monday August 14, 2006) KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's trade minister Monday urged Southeast Asian nations to get serious about tackling hurdles to regional integration, and try to form a European-style economic grouping by 2015 - five years earlier than originally planned.
Although tariffs on most products have been cut under the region's free trade pact, Rafidah Aziz said weak implementation and administrative red-tape are hampering efforts to integrate the 10 economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) into a single market and production base.
"It's nice to say (we want to) become champions of free trade and yet you don't go and look back into your own problems,'' she told reporters ahead of an ASEAN trade and economic ministers' meeting in Kuala Lumpur next week.
"Each government must take its responsibility seriously to address market issues. The policies are there, the measures are there but the implementation (is not) 100 percent...the bureaucratic process in every ASEAN country must really be looked into, so that there are no snags operationally.'' The ASEAN Economic Community or AEC, slated for 2020, allows for a free flow of goods, services and people across the region but does not call for a single currency.
Several members, led by Singapore and Thailand, are spearheading calls for the plan to be brought forward by five years to 2015, amid concerns the region may be eclipsed by economic giants China and India.
"If it is possible, we would like to accelerate to 2015,'' Rafidah said.
"If we can become a seamless, one-entity market ... and production base, then we can compete with any big markets of the world.''
In a separate statement, the trade ministry said ASEAN ministers will work on new measures to push forward the AEC to 2015, including speeding up liberalization of trade in services at their annual meeting on Aug. 22.
They are also expected to draw up further measures to enhance ASEAN's competitiveness as an investment base, before meeting key trading partners United States, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to review negotiations on free trade pacts.
The statement said ASEAN and the United States are expected to finalize an agreement to facilitate trade and investment, including removing non-tariff barriers - just one step short of a full-fledged free trade pact.
ASEAN has a market of 530 million people but a wide economic chasm divides its six more developed nations - Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand and the Philippines - and its four newer members - Vietnam, and Laos, military-ruled Myanmar and Cambodia.