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.