ASEAN officials meet ahead of summit

ASEAN officials meet ahead of summit

HANOI (AFP): Members of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) worked to put final touches on documents in
advance of a summit here, the ASEAN secretary general said on
Tuesday.

Officials ended the first of two days of meetings to put the
finishing touches on the Hanoi Declaration and Plan of Action,
to be issued at the conclusion of the ASEAN Summit looking at
ways out of the financial crisis.

"They are talking of ways to speed up AFTA and how to phase
out tariffs as early as possible," Jerry Reyes, secretariat
program coordinator for culture and information said.

A new plan would see an acceleration of a schedule to reduce
tariffs to five percent or zero percent within the ASEAN Free
Trade Area before the current target of 2003.

Discussions are also centered on how to make ASEAN more
attractive as an investment destination.

"ASEAN has made it clear that for foreign investment to return
in adequate amounts we have to hasten the integration of the
ASEAN economy," Severino said.

"The crisis has pushed ASEAN into greater cohesion and
cooperation as will be evident when the Hanoi Plan of Action
comes out," he added.

However it was not clear what the overall plan of ASEAN
recovery would look like given the differing responses of each
country, said Hadenan Jalil, deputy secretary general for trade
of the Ministry of Trade and Industry for Malaysia.

"Each country facing the crisis is different and have their
own way of handling it," he said.

The directors-general will be looking into the agenda for the
ASEAN plus three meetings held with Japan, South Korea and China,
Reyes said.