Asia should not look to U.S. for growth: PBEC

Asia should not look to U.S. for growth: PBEC

HONG KONG (AFP): South East Asian countries have to look within their own region for future economic growth rather than relying on the United States, the head of a regional economic council said Wednesday.

"ASEAN has to look within itself. It has to look somewhat inward," the secretary-general of the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC) Robert Lees said in an interview.

Member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have seen their economic growth weaken or disappear in the face of the U.S.-led global slowdown.

Due to increased competition around the world, it is getting harder to "export yourself out of your problems", he said citing the example of Japan.

He said the United States has been the main engine of the world economy and since the Asian financial crisis, which broke out in mid-1997, the U.S. has been the "only game in town".

"That's just not sustainable," Lees said.

ASEAN has to "get its proverbial act together".

"And how? By really have leaders get together... to say that we have to make this ASEAN free trade area work."

"The barriers have to go down, as you know there is still evidence there to protect their own little interests and certain industries."

Lees said the total population of half a billion people in the 10 ASEAN member states makes the region a "very interesting market".

PBEC is a U.S.-based business organization which boasts a membership of more than 1,100 corporations in 20 economies around the Pacific Rim.

Lees' comments in Hong Kong, echoed those made by the head of the regional bloc who was speaking at a university forum in Singapore on Wednesday.

"ASEAN countries have to recognize that they must integrate their economies faster because investors are looking for large, integrated markets rather than small, fragmented ones," ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino said.