Asia told to close ranks to face world competition
KUALA LUMPUR (JP): Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is inviting Asian nations to close ranks to improve competitiveness in facing the increasing global business competition following the implementation of the GATT principles.
"Asian countries will have to break away from narrow nationalistic thought-paths to pursue with greater enthusiasm a regional and global agenda," he said in a two-day conference at the Hilton hotel which ended yesterday.
He said the ratification of the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) by its signatories has practically sealed the fate of inward-looking policies, in favor of freer and more open markets, which will further enhance the economic prospects of individual Asian countries.
The new GATT principles are scheduled to be implemented early next month under the administration of the newly-established World Trade Organization.
"But the challenge before Asia at this point in time is not simply to grow as an aggregate of separate individual economies but as a more integrated regional entity," Anwar said. "We need to strengthen the building blocks of a regional Asia."
He suggested that Asian governments reengineer economic policies to overcome numerous internal constraints and to astutely cushion the impact of externally generated uncertainties and risks.
Reforms must be instituted to fortify economic fundamentals, while private sector initiatives must be given more room to generate growth and to spur the economy to greater heights, said Anwar, who is also Malaysian minister of finance.
Climate
The investment climate should be made more robust through deregulation and privatization and appropriate policies must be formulated to widen the industrial base in order to expand the export potential of the resultant industries, Anwar told 150 business people participating in the seminar, entitled Global Asia: Reengineering for Competitive Advantage, which was organized by the Far Eastern Economic Review
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of the U.S. Harvard University, told the meeting that countries wanting to increase their competitiveness should make improvements in the fields of macro- economy, labor costs, taxation systems and capital, while improving the development of human resources and the decentralization of the economy.
Certainty
The laws of the countries should also provide business certainty, he said.
Amnuay Viravan, the leader of the Nam Thai Party of Thailand, told the conference that in this era of globalization, governments and the business sectors in Asia should forge a strong and strategic alliance to improve efficiency.
The governments, for example, should adopt development, infrastructure, legal, fiscal and monetary frameworks and policies designed to facilitate the private sectors' investments and initiatives and upgrade the quality of human resources.
The governments should also pursue programs of economic liberalization and deregulation to promote competition as well as bring about necessary political reforms to attract younger, more educated generations to political careers in order to ensure the quality of political leadership over the longer term.
Meanwhile, the business sectors should strive for a sustainable increase in efficiency through significant investment in human resource development and research and development activities, he said. (riz)