The ASEAN chief called on Southeast Asian states to open up their markets amid global financial woes that have seen developed economies tilt toward protectionism.
Familiarizing ASEAN: ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan delivers a speech about the ASEAN Charter’s economic community in a forum organized by the Thai Business Club in Mercantile Club, Jakarta, on Tuesday. (JP/J. Adiguna)
The ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told a forum on Tuesday that the worsening economic crisis had forced many nation-states to resort to protectionism as a short-term solution in a movement that was believed would bring further adverse impact to economic improvement.
“ASEAN countries have to open up their markets as stipulated in the ASEAN Charter they have ratified and [which] came into force on Dec. 15. An integrated and open market would help address the current financial crisis, which has started to hit our region,” he said at a business forum organized by the Thai Business Club in Indonesia
An open market in the region of half a billion people is seen as being able to cope with the situation, after a plunge in exports to its biggest markets — the United States, the European Union and Japan, whose economies are the most affected by the current global finance crisis.
The unified market, due to be launched by 2015 under the ASEAN Charter’s one economic community, would embrace ten memberstates with different levels of prosperity, from the international trade hub of Singapore to Myanmar, the target of western sanctions.
The unified market would allow for the free flow of goods, services, investment and skilled professionals among the member countries to integrate ASEAN economies with the global economy.
One of the most immediate implications of the building of an economic community would be the elimination of tariffs and non-tariff barriers in 12 priority sectors, including agricultural, rubber and wood-based products along with air travel, Internet linkages, automotive, electronics, fisheries, health-care, logistics, textile and apparel, and tourism, by 2010. The blueprint for the economic community is poised to be finalized during the ASEAN Summit in Thailand in late February.
Surin warned leaders in the region’s more developed economies about certain groups that might be hampering the building of the ASEAN economic community with an eye to their own interests.
“People think that the more developed economies in ASEAN might be better prepared for an integrated, open market, but the opposite is true,” he said.
“Less developed economies will be more willing to open up because they have not much to protect and less vested interests that would try to influence decisions.”
Surin also called on member states to harmonize customs procedures and common production standards, ease transit of goods and streamline bureaucracy to herald the unified market because, in the end, it was not tariff barriers that mattered to the regional business community as much as how well a country’s infrastructure could facilitate the investments.
