ASEAN to receive new wave of U.S. investments: Experts

ASEAN to receive new wave of U.S. investments: Experts

P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse, Washington

U.S. companies are considering a new wave of capital investments to Southeast Asia following greater political stability and assurances of business-friendly reforms by leaders in the region, experts say.

The United States is the largest investor in Southeast Asia but there has been a lull in large American investments since 1997, when the region was struck by financial turmoil.

Recovery from crisis was dampened by threats from terrorism and the pneumonia-like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic.

Now, both U.S. multinational corporations and small and medium sized companies are eager to pump more investments in the region, buoyed by evolving reforms and political stability underscored by smooth leadership changes in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, said Ernest Bower and Karen Brooks, two Washington-based experts on Southeast Asia,

Bower, the former president of the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council, and Brooks, the ex-Asian chief at the White House's National Security Council, have joined forces and set up an advisory services firm to promote U.S.-Asia business ties.

Their organization, BrooksBowerAsia, will work with a select group of American multinational firms to expand business links in the region.

"I know from working with the companies that there are new investment plans on the table. There will be a new wave coming in," said Bower, who had headed the U.S.-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Business Council for the last decade.

"We don't want to ride the change but we want to make the change happen," he told AFP, speaking alongside Brooks, a leading architect of U.S. policy toward Asia during both the Bush and Clinton administrations.

They listed Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand as potential destinations for the new American investments in the power, automotive, information technology, biotechnology and financial services sectors.

U.S. companies have pumped into the region investments worth about US$50 billion so far. Bower said the investments were now valued twice the amount.

He said some American companies had faced trouble making new investments in Southeast Asia due to bureaucratic problems.

It is understood that the administration of ex-Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri was unable to decide on about $7 billion in planned American investments in the oil and gas sector.

"Now the question is: will SBY's (new Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's) team be ready to and able to make those decisions," Bower said.

"It is very possible that he will be but you got to approach that opportunity in a way that is more holistic and has a long term strategy," he said.

Yudhoyono has vowed reforms to attract investments that could fuel much needed growth in the largest Southeast Asian country fighting growing unemployment and terrorism.

Bower also said Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's bid to promote transparency and rule of law as well as to open up parastatal companies had "attracted immense interest in boardrooms" in the United States.

Though Bower and Brooks are close to many ASEAN leaders, they said they would not act as a lobby group or as "agents" for Southeast Asian governments in Washington.

They would however spend a substantial portion of their time in Southeast Asia.

"We want to bridge primarily or least initially the business community but then the broader relationship," said Brooks, who had once lived and worked in Indonesia and China and speaks fluent Indonesian and Mandarin.

Under their modus operandi, Bower and Brooks would be integrated into Asian teams of several multinational companies in the United States to help them make forays into the region.

To avoid working with competitors of companies in which they are integrated, the duo would be attached to only one company in each sector and limited sectors.

"We are going to be integrated into the teams of clients as opposed to picking up the phone every couple of weeks and fix a problem," Brooks said.