ASEAN to discuss Free Trade

ASEAN to discuss Free Trade

Associated Press, Genting Highlands, Malaysia

Southeast Asian trade and economic ministers gathered Friday for a weekend that blends friendly golf games with discussions about the region's financial future - including a pact with China that would create the world's largest free-trade area.

The meeting, at a hill resort 950 meters above sea level, will focus on boosting economic ties between the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its trading partners.

The ministers will also discuss issues related to the World Trade Organization, and measures to improve economic integration within Asean and to develop more Southeast Asian conglomerates, Malaysian officials say.

Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz said earlier this week that the ministers want to debate plans, announced last November, to expand a Southeast Asian free-trade pact to include China.

ASEAN has agreed to work with China toward creating the free- trade zone within 10 years. It would be the world's largest, with a combined market of 1.7 billion people and gross domestic product of US$2 trillion.

But some countries fear the plan would flood them with cheap Chinese goods and make Southeast Asia less attractive to foreign investors.

Rafidah was scheduled to host a working dinner Friday for the ministers, while talks would formally begin Saturday at the Genting Highlands resort, 50 kilometers northwest of Kuala Lumpur.

On Sunday, the ministers will play golf before flying home. No specific agreements are expected from the three-day meeting, which has been billed as a retreat.

Asean, founded at the height of the Cold War in 1967 as an economic grouping of non-communist countries, today comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The grouping marked one its biggest milestones in January 2002 by inaugurating the Asean Free Trade Area. The accord, hammered out over the past decade, is seen as a way to lure foreign investment and revive export-driven economies battered by the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis.

Asean was the world's fastest-growing region economically before the crisis, but has since seen foreign investment in Asia migrate northward to China. The grouping has been formalizing ties with Northeast Asia, and its annual summits now include the leaders of Japan, China and South Korea.