ASEAN agrees to liberalize services

ASEAN agrees to liberalize services

KUALA LUMPUR (AP): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has agreed to liberalize trade in services among its nine members and set up a foundation to help its people help themselves.

Copies of the agreements, which are to be signed by top ASEAN officials at their three-day summit that opened last night, were obtained by The Associated Press.

The protocol on services, to take effect no later than March 31, is based on negotiations that followed a framework agreement signed at the ASEAN summit in Bangkok two years ago.

It sets out a schedule for specific commitments that each member country will undertake in extending preferential treatment in services to other countries in the region on a most-favored- nation basis.

The new ASEAN Foundation, to be based in Jakarta, will promote human resources development to enable the region's 500 million residents "to realize their full potential and capacity to contribute to progress," the memorandum of understanding says.

The foundation -- which will have a board of directors, executive director, council of advisers and other staff -- will receive funds from members who wish to join, along with ASEAN "dialog partners," private corporations and others.

The money will be used to:

* organize and support activities to promote education, training, health and cultural life.

* provide fellowships to and support exchanges of ASEAN youth and students.

* promote collaborative work among academics, professionals and scientists.

* provide assistance to "uplift the social condition" of ASEAN residents.

Leaders from the nine ASEAN members arrived yesterday. Conspicuously absent will be Indonesia's President Soeharto, the oldest ASEAN leader and sole survivor of the five heads of state who ordered the founding of ASEAN 30 years ago. Soeharto is staying away for health reasons.

Three non-ASEAN countries invited to attend the commemorative summit also arrived yesterday. They were Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

Jiang discussed the regional financial turmoil with his host Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad yesterday.

Jiang, the highest-level Chinese official ever to meet ASEAN leaders, was accompanied on a special flight by his wife Wang Yeping and officials including Foreign Minister Qian Qichen and special assistant Zeng Qinghong.

Jiang held a one-hour discussion with Mahathir, and discussions were "100 percent on currency," Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told reporters.

"Both agreed that the situation is serious enough and there has to be some kind of cooperation that can be worked out to help the ailing economies to recover despite the fact that we all know that there is already the IMF helping them," Abdullah said.

Separately Hashimoto said Japan would continue to offer support to Asian nations, but only within an international framework in conjunction with the IMF.

"Our basic stance remains unchanged...we must work within an international framework or else it won't be effective," Hashimoto told reporters during a flight to Malaysia.

Hashimoto said while the ASEAN talks could touch upon a wide range of topics, the main focus would be on how Japan could contribute to helping the region's battered economies, and to reconfirm Japan's support for the framework agreed in Manila in November.

But ASEAN officials stopped short of endorsing a plan, advocated by Mahathir, to establish a standby fund independent of the IMF and its austerity programs, on grounds that it would undercut the IMF and weaken the region's desire to take strong corrective action.