AIPO accepts Laos as new member

By Dwi Atmanta

DENPASAR (JP): The acceptance of Laos into the Association of Southeast Asia Nations Internal Parliament Organization (AIPO) marked the first day of the organization's 18th general assembly yesterday, with talks immediately following on a solution to the monetary problem currently afflicting the region.

A plenary session of the assembly presided over by AIPO President Wahono agreed to appoint the Laotian National Assembly as the organization's seventh member.

Laos now joins Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam as AIPO members. AIPO's decision yesterday followed the inclusion of Laos into ASEAN during its ministerial meeting in Kuala Lumpur in July.

The plenary session also adopted a resolution that admits another new ASEAN member, Myanmar, as an AIPO special observer. Myanmar, like Brunei, has not received full membership to AIPO because it does not have a legislative body yet.

President of the Laotian National Assembly, Samane Vignaket, expressed guarded optimism at the admission ceremony that the inclusion of his country into AIPO would help enhance Laos' socioeconomic development so that it could be on par with other member countries.

Wahono, also speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, said in his speech that AIPO's decision to admit Laos was additional proof of ASEAN's consistent policy in building the Southeast Asian region into a solid group.

He said AIPO was looking forward to seeing a settlement to the internal conflict in Cambodia.

Chairman of the assembly's working committee, Theo Sambuaga, said the internal rift in Cambodia would be among the major political topics of committee meetings, along with the South China Sea dispute.

The meetings, scheduled for two days starting today, will be followed by a series of dialogs between AIPO members and observer delegations from Cambodia, Australia, China, the European Parliament, South Korea, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Russia.

A joint communique will be signed on Friday to mark the closing of the general assembly.

Currency

A member of the assembly's steering committee, Taheri Noor, said the six-day meeting was expected to draw up a resolution to help ASEAN governments cope with the monetary turmoil in the region.

Taheri said AIPO was likely to suggest that ASEAN governments make use of a joint monetary institution already approved last month to help countries which suffer from the overpriced dollar.

He said the institution should oblige ASEAN member countries to store savings in dollars, the amount of which would depend on the capability of respective countries. Countries endangered by the currency trouble deserve a certain percentage of lending in dollars, he added.

"Each ASEAN member cannot rely on its own strength. Instead it should team up to cope with the monetary problem," Taheri said.

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Soerjadi shared Taheri's view, saying that the ongoing AIPO general assembly should not be satisfied with coming up with a joint statement. It should instead issue a recommendation for action.

"This meeting may recommend a mutual agreement of ASEAN members to adopt a common directive, although it may be a loose one, to avoid conflicting economic policies between them," said Soerjadi, the deputy speaker in charge of economic and development affairs.

He said the currency crisis could threaten ongoing preparation for the free trade area in Southeast Asia in 2003.