East ASEAN nations forge pact on common market

East ASEAN nations forge pact on common market

DAVAO, Philippines (Reuter): Four southeast Asian nations on Saturday forged a pact to turn areas that used to be backwaters into a bustling regional market for free trade, officials said.

Businessmen and officials from Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines approved resolutions at the end of the three-day conference on the East ASEAN Growth Area (EAGA) to cooperate in the exploitation of the region's rich fishery and forestry resources and promote tourism.

"This is...a giant step towards realizing an East ASEAN (common market)," Philippine Trade and Industry Secretary Rizalino Navarro said in a speech ending the conference held in the southern city of Davao.

"We will all realize the huge potential for a bustling exchange of goods. The government sector will not be in your way," he added.

ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) includes the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

EAGA would link the oil-rich sultanate of Brunei with the largely neglected island provinces of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Deals

A total of 12 business deals worth US$118 million was signed during the conference and hundreds of meetings on possible joint ventures were held.

"This is a good beginning," Daim Zainuddin, the Malaysian official in charge of a similar economic zone linking Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, told reporters.

Navarro said he would endorse eight resolutions from the conference to develop sea and air links and ease barriers to the movement of people in the region at a meeting of senior ASEAN officials to be held in Manado of Indonesia at the end of the month.

"The (ASEAN) ministers will take a hard look to break down some of these political and territorial barriers. We will not get in the way of the private sector in doing business," he told reporters at the end of the meeting.

Malai Ali Othman, permanent secretary of the communications ministry in Brunei, rejected the view that EAGA nations will find it difficult to cooperate because they sell and produce the same type of goods.

"The focus here is how we can complement each other," he said. "If there is competition, that is normal."

Navarro said the presence of large official and private delegations from Taiwan and the Northern Territory of Australia will help EAGA get off the ground.

EAGA members also endorsed the holding of annual tourism fairs and joint projects to develop prime tourist spots in the area. They also decided to begin work in the area of conservation and protection of fishery resources in the region.