ASEAN to sign financial services pact at summit

ASEAN to sign financial services pact at summit

BANGKOK (Reuter): Leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will focus on speeding up the liberalization of financial services in the region when they meet in December, a senior Thai official said.

Deputy Prime Minister Amnuay Virawan told reporters at the weekend a proposal to accelerate the implementation of ASEAN's free trade area would also be on top of the agenda at the Dec. 14-15 summit in Bangkok.

Amnuay said ASEAN's seven leaders -- from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- were expected to sign an agreement affirming their commitment to service sector liberalization.

The businesses which would benefit from a liberalization agreement would include banking and finance, airlines, construction and shipping, Amnuay said.

He said the ASEAN pact on services would be more comprehensive than a World Trade Organization agreement on international service sector business.

Amnuay said a proposal to speed up implementation of an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), covering the group's 420 million-strong market, would also be discussed in Bangkok.

ASEAN originally aimed at creating a free trade zone under a Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme by the year 2008 but economic ministers agreed last year to speed up its implementation by five years to 2003.

Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah then proposed at the group's foreign ministers' meeting at Brunei last July that the timetable for slashing tariffs to a maximum of five percent be brought forward to the year 2000.

His call met a mixed response.

Some businessmen and government officials in the region have pointed out that Brunei has only a small industrial sector while there are infant industries elsewhere in ASEAN which need some protection beyond the year 2000.

A meeting of ASEAN's economic ministers in Brunei last month agreed to make the year 2000 a voluntary target date.

Amnuay said Thailand would be able to eliminate tariffs on some categories of goods, but added the government would need to consult the private sector before making a commitment.

Amnuay also said the ASEAN leaders were expected to sign an agreement making the region a nuclear weapons free zone.