Asia-Europe summit to focus on economics
Asia-Europe summit to focus on economics
CHIANG RAI, Thailand (Reuter): An Asian economic ministers preparatory meeting ended yesterday with a call to focus on economic issues at the first Asia-Europe summit in Bangkok in early March.
The meeting, which ended a day ahead of schedule, agreed that economic cooperation between the two regions was a theme that needed to be underlined at the summit, Japan's International Trade and Industry Minister Shunpei Tsukahara told reporters.
"I believe we cannot think of effective cooperation in the world without emphasizing the importance of economic cooperation," Tsukahara said.
"The concerns the EU may have vis-a-vis Asia and concerns Asia has towards the European Union are not to do with diplomatic issues, but economic issues."
Trade ministers and senior economic officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan and South Korea were formulating a common agenda of specific topics that need to be brought up at the March 1-2 Asia-Europe summit.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
They did not outline the specific topics at the end of the meeting. The summit is also expected to address a host of political issues such as reform of the UN, nuclear disarmament and security matters in the two regions.
"Our effort is to promote open regionalism," Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Amnuay Viravan said earlier.
"Open regionalism should be a mutual process. If we open the door halfway then we hope Europe will open the same amount at the same time."
Liberalization
Officials said the 10 East Asian nations plan to stress liberalization in their talks, because they were concerned that some of Europe's preferential policies within its grouping might affect a link with Asia.
"If they are interested in trade we hope they will view the world trade as two-way traffic not just European outward-bound trade," Krirk-krai Jirapaet, director-general of the Thai Commerce Ministry's department of business economics, said in an interview yesterday.
Some East Asian nations favor asking Europe to meet similar liberalization targets as those of the 18-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. APEC leaders are aiming for overall free trade and investment in the region by 2020.
Asian ministers say European investment in the region is not as high as it could be, with many European companies not taking advantage of trade opportunities.
A Singapore delegate said one of the main reasons for the summit in March was to spur investment in the region.
Amnuay told Reuters on Tuesday that the rate of increase in trade between Thailand and the EU has been growing unsteadily, and has even declined over the past few years.
In terms of exports, the EU is currently the fourth-biggest export market for Thailand, after ASEAN, the U.S. and Japan. A few years ago it was second, and a similar declining trend has been seen in other Asian nations, Krirk-krai said.
One of the issues Thailand will propose at the summit is to establish a more defined way of promoting private sector investment, he said.
"If it is agreed by our colleagues we would like to do something in concrete terms. We would like to put a government support flavor in it ... more of a governmental-cum-private sector approach to investment."