ASEAN hails China WTO deal

ASEAN hails China WTO deal

JAKARTA (AFP): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Tuesday welcomed the trade pact between China and the United States, and expressed hope it would lead to Beijing's admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In a statement issued at ASEAN headquarters here the organization's secretary general, Rodolfo Severino, said that ASEAN had since 1997 supported not only China's membership of the WTO, but also the admission of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

That call had been made at the ASEAN summit in Manila in December of 1997, the statement said.

Severino also said that in October of this year he had said that ASEAN, whose members have been buffeted over the past two years by the regional economic crisis, welcomed the further liberalization of world trade at a time of Southeast Asia's incipient recovery from the crisis.

Severino predicted that ASEAN would benefit particularly from a significant liberalization of world trade in food and agricultural products, the freer movement of persons, and the lowering of tariffs on labor-intensive manufactured products.