ASEAN conducts survey to boost direct investment

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)