ASEM calls for more regional trade

ASEM calls for more regional trade

Joseph Coleman, Associated Press, Hanoi

Asian and European business leaders at a joint forum pushed for greater trade between their regions on Thursday, with Asians calling for more transfer of technology to their countries and Europeans demanding greater Asian investment.

Speakers at the opening of the Asia-Europe Business Forum IX, held on the sidelines of the fifth Asia-Europe Meeting, or ASEM, praised the burgeoning trade flows between the two regions, home to some of the world's biggest corporations and its fastest growing economies.

ASEM, with the scheduled addition of 13 members on Thursday, will comprise a market of 2.7 billion consumers, making up 46 percent of world gross domestic products and 43 percent of its trade volume, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan told delegates.

Still, he said much more remains to be done.

"Today, Asia and Europe are key trade and investment partners of each other," Khoan told delegates. "However, the scope of cooperation matches neither the potentials of the two continents nor the needs of the new situation."

Asian delegates focused on urging European companies to step up transfers of technology to Asian countries and corporations to boost productivity and redress the vast gap in development between the two regions.

Yu Ping, vice chairman of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, said Chinese companies were also keenly interested in intensifying joint research and development with Europeans.

He also called for freer trade between the two regions.

"Chinese business circles at present are especially concerned about how and when the barriers and obstacles to trade imposed by the developed countries on the developing countries could be reduced and removed," he said.

The Europeans, however, said the two sides should also address the serious imbalances in the direction of trade and investment between the two regions.

For instance, the quantity of Asian goods being sold in Europe dwarfs the amount of European goods being sold in Asia, said Jacques Gravereau, president of France's HEC Eurasia Institute.

The European Union buys an average of US$285 billion in Asian goods a year, but the EU makes only $160 billion in sales in Asia, and the growth of EU sales in Asia is much lower than in other parts of the world, he said.

Others called for more Asian investment in Europe.

"We in Europe are in favor of cross-border investment, but cross-border investment is not a one-way street," said Gert Vogt, the head of the German delegation, urging Asian companies to invest and set up production facilities in Europe.