ASEAN free trade plan on schedule despite turmoil

ASEAN free trade plan on schedule despite turmoil

HONG KONG (Dow Jones): A top official of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations said yesterday that the Asian economic crisis won't derail its plan to set up a regional free trade zone by the year 2003.

"(The) ASEAN has, at the highest level, strongly reaffirmed its commitment to regional economic integration and open regionalism, to keeping the ASEAN Free Trade Area on track and on schedule," Rodolfo C. Severino Jr., Asean Secretary-General, said at an international conference in Hong Kong on Thursday.

He said AFTA's completion, scheduled for Jan. 1, 2003, "will bring to reality a market of half a billion people and thus an even more attractive investment site for serious long-term investors."

Severino said since the founding of Asean 31 years ago, "no disaster has hit the countries of Southeast Asia with such widespread impact as the financial crisis." In a bid to help prevent future crises, Asean finance ministers have decided to establish an economic monitoring mechanism to keep track of capital inflows, the operation of their banking system and their macroeconomic indicators.

The ASEAN official also called on the international community to help Indonesia, the most populous and an influential member of Asean, which has been ravaged by financial and political turmoil in recent months.

"I believe that the international community needs urgently to get behind Indonesia in its struggle to strengthen and stabilize its currency, revive its economy, reduce inflation, hold back the rise in unemployment, and cushion the poor.... Such support would help restore investor confidence in Indonesia's future and encourage that country in the political and economic reforms that it has started to undertake," Severino said.