ASEAN to back common regional market: Goh

ASEAN to back common regional market: Goh

Agence France-Presse, Singapore

Southeast Asian leaders are likely to approve a common
regional market when they meet in Bali next month, Singapore
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said in comments reported on
Tuesday.

"I think the leaders will endorse this idea in Bali," Goh said
in an interview with the British-based Financial Times, citing
rising competition from China and India as strong incentives for
the united position.

At the same time, Goh noted that no timetable has as yet been
agreed by the 10-member Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN).

"The leaders understand the need to integrate the economies
but the will to move faster is not yet clear, partly because of
their own domestic considerations," the Financial Times quoted
him as saying.

Goh and the other nine ASEAN leaders will meet on the
Indonesian resort island of Bali for their annual summit from
Oct. 7-8.

Singapore has been leading moves to create a common market for
ASEAN, which is facing intense low-wage competition from the
booming economies of China and India.

White-collar skills, especially in India's IT sector, are also
proving an immense challenge to Singapore's ambitions of being an
Asian high-tech hub.

Goh said that Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia will lead the
call for the economic integration of ASEAN, which has a market of
half a billion people, to occur more quickly.

ASEAN's original timetable for an ASEAN Economic Community had
been set for 2020.

Goh and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said earlier
this month that this date was too far away, especially with China
and India moving to complete a web of free-trade arrangements
with their neighbors within a decade.

Both leaders said at a news conference here on Sept. 6 they
would ask their fellow ASEAN leaders in Bali to accelerate the
time frame but declined to give a new target date.

ASEAN leaders want the group to go beyond removing tariffs to
creating a community where there is a free movement of goods,
services, investments and capital.

The vision also includes a European Union-style integrated
ASEAN market to be able to compete with China and India.

ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam, makes decisions on the basis of consensus.