'Asia should open doors wider for foreign goods'

'Asia should open doors wider for foreign goods'

SINGAPORE (Reuter): East Asian states should open their doors wider to foreign goods and promote liberalized global trade, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said on Thursday.

He told a business forum organized by Fortune magazine that many Asian nations still viewed market-opening as a necessary evil rather than a desirable objective.

"They have valued open Western markets but often viewed the opening up of their own markets as a necessary evil rather than a desirable objective that will ultimately benefit their own populations," he said.

The combined economies of East Asia now exceeded that of the United States, up from barely a third of the U.S. economy in 1950, he said.

"East Asian nations are now important actors on the world economic stage," he said.

"They must recognize their increasing responsibility in determining whether a liberal world order is sustained."

On the 18-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Goh said member economies have not yet decided whether the tariff cuts they agreed to undertake on their own will be extended to non-members unilaterally.

At a summit in Bogor, Indonesia, last year APEC set a target of regional free trade by 2020, with industrialized countries taking the lead by 2010.

"The alternative, of extending benefits to non-members on a negotiated basis, will prevent them from free-riding on APEC's more liberal markets," he said.

"Either way, open regionalism will work in favor of lower trade barriers globally," he added.