Businessmen to up investment, trade in region

Businessmen to up investment, trade in region

The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali

President Megawati Soekarnoputri urged ASEAN businessmen to
increase trade and investment activities in the region as
governments pushed to liberalize trade and integrate their
economies.

She also said that investors should not be deterred by the
terrorism threat.

"Against this background, I am truly pleased, along with the
other leaders of ASEAN, to invite and encourage the business
sector to play an active role in this conducive environment ...
We hope that the ASEAN business sector will be able to take a
tremendous advantage from the future potential of the
increasingly developing ASEAN economic market," she said on
Sunday, opening the first ASEAN Business and Investment Summit
(ASEAN-BIS).

The three-day summit is being held as leaders of the 10 member
countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
gather here for the regional grouping's annual summit. Leaders of
the region's major trading partners, including Japan, China,
India and South Korea, are also scheduled to participate in the
summit.

The grouping is also expected to endorse a framework to
establish the ASEAN Economic Community in 17 years, which is to
create a common market covering a population of more than 500
million that will boost trade and investment activities. It is
also to boost the region's global competitiveness, particularly
because China has gained much greater foreign direct investments
in the past couple of years.

ASEAN will also sign agreements with Japan and India on the
establishment of ASEAN Free Trade Areas (AFTA).

These efforts are to help return the region's economies to
growth levels prior to the 1997 economic crisis, and to recover
from its recent troubles, including the SARS outbreak and
terrorist attacks.

"We would like to demonstrate that, however profound the
sorrow that befell us sometime ago due to the inhumane terror
act, it should not deter us from moving forward," Megawati said
in response to choosing Bali as the venue for the summit.

The ASEAN-BIS is organized by the recently introduced ASEAN
Business Advisory Council (ASEAN BAC), and is to be an annual
event. According to a press statement from the organizing
committee, some 700 businesspeople and top corporate chiefs from
various countries are attending in the event, which includes
business and investment dialog sessions, deal making sessions and
exhibitions.

Experts have said that ASEAN needs to be more competitive to
attract foreign direct investments, not only multinational, but
also intra-ASEAN investments.

"Albeit existing problems, especially in individual member
country's regulations, the potential in ASEAN is tremendous,"
said ASEAN-BAC chairman Rudy J. Pesik.

"We have to clean out problems, although AFTA is in place --
but there are still non-tariff barriers, constraining visa
regulations and other irregularities," he said.

Rudy also said that a number of business and investment
memorandums of understanding are expected from the summit.

Meanwhile, chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (Kadin) Aburizal Bakrie said creating a single market
for ASEAN could be achieved between 2010 and 2015, as the
business sector was ready to cooperate with the government and
because intra-ASEAN trade activities were on the rise.