ASEAN delegates pass Hanoi draft on wealth disparity
ASEAN delegates pass Hanoi draft on wealth disparity
HANOI (AFP): ASEAN delegates on Wednesday ended three days of talks and passed a draft resolution aimed at resolving the growing wealth gap between member countries, officials said.
A communique issued after the meeting said the Hanoi Declaration on ASEAN was passed but details would not be released until a later date.
The document will be put to the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting of foreign ministers scheduled for July in Hanoi for final ratification.
Wealth disparity has become a byword among ASEAN countries seeking to protect and improve their standards of living. The group's economies range from First-World Singapore to dirt-poor Cambodia.
Delegates were tight-lipped about the contents of talks and media were barred from approaching officials.
"Wealth disparity is the most sensible topic to be discussed," one diplomat said.
Its focus includes infrastructure, human resources and information technology and members have opposed any linkage between trade and labor standards.
Their position has been made worse by a global economic slowdown which was expected to impact on Asian exports just as many regional economies were climbing out of a recession brought on by the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis.
In Kuala Lumpur last week, labor ministers at their annual meeting advocated "multi-skilling" of workers to keep them employed amid recent downsizing by multinational corporations.
They wound up their two-day meet urging the International Labor Organization (ILO) not to punish Myanmar over forced labor, saying it was doing all it could to stamp out the practice.
Ministers noted that Southeast Asia's traditional cheap labor advantage was being eroded in the era of new economies and said the region must work on upgrading skills.
This should also become part of a strategy to cope with economic downturns, they said.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. They were expected to also consult with the Asian Regional Forum, encompassing 23 countries, over the next two days.