ASEAN conducts survey to boost direct investment

JAKARTA (JP): The secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is conducting a survey on the promotion of direct foreign investment into and throughout the region.

The secretariat said in a statement here yesterday that the aim of the study is to determine how investors assess ASEAN's investment environment.

It said the secretariat had mailed questionnaires to 7,500 firms, both international and ASEAN-based companies. The questionnaires will probe issues such as whether ASEAN is regarded as an investment region in its own right, what motivates investors to invest in the region and what effect regional schemes, such as the Common Effective Preferential Tariffs and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), have on foreign investment decisions.

The survey, expected to be completed by the end of this year, will contain policy recommendations on ways and means to promote and further enhance ASEAN's competitiveness for attracting greater foreign investment.

The importance of direct foreign investment in ASEAN is clear. According to statistics, ASEAN members are among the top 15 recipients of direct foreign investment flows to the developing world, and together accounted for more than 60 percent of foreign investment flows to developing Asia between 1980 and 1993.

ASEAN -- grouping Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- collectively hosts a direct foreign investment stock approaching US$200 billion. Last year, foreign investment flows to the region increased by 131 percent to $39.5 billion from $17.1 billion in 1993.

Indonesia alone booked a record of $92.38 billion of foreign investment approvals from 1967 to 1994. Last year, Indonesia approved a total of $23.7 billion for foreign investment projects, almost three times the approved amount in 1993. For the first seven months of this year, foreign investment approvals in the country reached a new record high of $29.4 billion.

"These statistics indicate the confidence placed by investors on the competitiveness and attractiveness of ASEAN as their production base," the Jakarta-based ASEAN secretariat said.

It added that the ASEAN region attracts a lot of direct foreign investment because it offers many congenial investment factors, such as political stability, prudent macro economic policies, high rates of return on investment, efficient operating environment, availability of human and natural resources, pro- business and pro-private sector development policies and a sizable integrated regional market.

The secretariat also said that it was in the process of establishing a comprehensive database of ASEAN and foreign investors in the region. The purpose of the database, which will be published in a number of forms, including CD-ROM and directories, is to help facilitate and foster greater trade, business and investment linkages in the region.

Together with the respective ASEAN members' investment agencies, the secretariat is working on a series of publications on the investment environment and opportunities in the region. These publication will include Biennial Review of Investment Environment and Opportunities in ASEAN, ASEAN Investment Profile, Investing in ASEAN: Facts and Figures and Compendium of Investment and Business Office Documentation Used in ASEAN/AFTA.

The secretariat said it would also organize two high-level meetings, an experts seminar on the promotion of direct foreign investment in ASEAN in the context of AFTA and a roundtable on the promotion of ASEAN to international and indigenous ASEAN investors, scheduled for later this year. (rid)