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."