ASEAN finance ministers to hold roadshows

ASEAN finance ministers to hold roadshows

Agence France-Presse, Singapore

Southeast Asian finance ministers will stage joint roadshows in Europe and the United States to help attract investors to the region, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Wednesday.

In a keynote speech to the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) finance ministers meeting, Lee highlighted the roadshow concept as a way of drawing some international focus back from regional giants China and India.

"To keep ASEAN on the radar screens of international investors, finance ministers are planning to organize joint roadshows to Europe and the U.S. to promote the investment opportunities in ASEAN," said Lee, who is also finance minister.

Roadshows involve governments and companies presenting opportunities to business leaders, fund managers and other investors at key global cities.

Singapore's second finance minister, Lim Hng Kiang, who chaired the ASEAN meeting, said the first joint promotion will likely take place at the end of September in New York ahead of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meeting in Washington in October.

Another opportunity will be when Singapore hosts the IMF-WB meetings themselves in 2006. The annual meetings will gather the world's finance ministers and central bank chiefs.

Lim said although the 10-member regional grouping has implemented crucial reforms since the Asian financial crisis seven years ago, investors remained wary of the region's prospects.

"Not all of these (reforms) are clearly understood by the investing community and therefore it is important for us to take the message to the investors," he told a joint news conference at the end of the meeting.

"We need to present the ASEAN story better to the outside world and to bring the story to the investors as well as eventually bring the investors to the region so that they can understand us better... and see ASEAN as a place where the investment opportunities are bright."

ASEAN has been losing out to China and India in terms of attracting foreign investments as foreign companies look to the two emerging economic powerhouses as cheaper and more efficient bases.

Lee, who is also Singapore's finance minister, emphasized ASEAN had a combined population of 560 million people and gross domestic product of US$330 billion, comparable with China's coastal region.

"ASEAN must once again band together to maximize our strengths. Our fundamentals are strong and can be further exploited," he said.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.