'AFTA is on the track'

Rodolfo C. Severino, Jr, has served as the ASEAN Secretary- General for ... years since .... The former ... shared his view in an interview over the promising AFTA economic cooperation, which is expected to turn this region into an integrated production base and a market of 500 million people.

Question: What do you see as ASEAN's major accomplishment in its 35-year history?

Answer: ASEAN has helped keep the peace among its member-states. It has done this by providing a forum and a framework in which positive relationships among the countries of Southeast Asia are formed.

The necessity of regional cooperation and integration in an increasingly interconnected global economy has given each country in Southeast Asia a vital stake in the others' stability and prosperity. Closer integration among the economies of Southeast Asia in ASEAN has made them more competitive than they would otherwise have been.

ASEAN cooperation in a wide range of areas -- from the environment to information technology to communicable diseases to transnational crime, and now terrorism -- has developed a sense of community, at least among the governments of the region. The habit of consultation built up over the years has amplified the voice of each member-state in international forums.

Through the ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN has engaged powers with important roles in East Asia in consultations on regional security issues, thus contributing to regional stability.

Q: What is the relevance of ASEAN in today's Asia?

A: The combination of the end of the Cold War, the march of globalization, the rise of China's power and influence and the surge of its economy, and the shifts in Japan's position could be a factor for instability in East Asia.

ASEAN has helped maintain East Asian stability in these times of flux by helping keep Southeast Asia stable and standing as an example of regional stability through regional cooperation.

ASEAN has engaged the major East Asian and other powers in the region's development through the ASEAN dialog system and in its security through the ASEAN Regional Forum.

ASEAN has enabled each Southeast Asian country to play an influential role in the affairs of East Asia. ASEAN has fostered cooperation with China, Japan and the Republic of Korea in the ASEAN+3 process and through the dialog system and ARF and, in so doing, helped bring the countries of East Asia together. China, Japan and Korea have used the ASEAN+3 forum to develop consultations and cooperation among themselves. ASEAN is at the hub of the network of currency swap arrangements in East Asia that is meant to foster financial stability in the region. ASEAN has spearheaded the formation of linkages between East Asia and Europe and between East Asia and Latin America.

Q: What is the relevance of AFTA in today's global trading environment?

A: ASEAN is integrating the regional economy principally through the ASEAN Free Trade Area. At the same time, ASEAN countries and ASEAN itself remain open to global trade, as they have been from the time of ASEAN's founding. ASEAN countries, collectively and individually, have thus been plugged into the global trading system.

ASEAN has supported the launch of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations in WTO, while insisting that the results be fair and balanced, that the developed countries fulfill the commitments made in previous rounds, and that the interests of developing countries be taken into account.

ASEAN has been seeking to strengthen its trading and other economic relationships with China, Japan, Korea, and Australia and New Zealand, even as the United States and the European Union remain important economic partners. AFTA, a market of half a billion people, can thus be considered a major building block of the global trading system.

Q: What are the main obstacles facing AFTA in today's recessionary Asia?

A: AFTA is on track. AFTA's accelerated schedule for the first six signatories to the agreement has already been achieved, with 95.7 percent of the intra-ASEAN trade in goods now with tariffs of no more than five percent or none at all. ASEAN has to move on, beyond the 1 January 2002 AFTA milestone. Member-countries have to move faster toward their targets for abolishing tariffs among themselves. They have to progress expeditiously toward zero tariffs. Beyond tariffs, they have to streamline customs procedures and harmonize product standards. They have to move faster in their negotiations on trade in services. They have to strengthen transport linkages -- land, air and sea. They have to embark on extra efforts to bring the development level of the newer members closer to that of the older members. They have to work together on telecommunications and information technology. All these ASEAN is working on. But it has to do more to make AFTA and ASEAN itself better known in the international business community and to the public at large.