Experts see little chance of China-ASEAN FTA

Experts see little chance of China-ASEAN FTA

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Singapore

There is little chance a proposed China-ASEAN free trade agreement will be pulled off within 10 years, a group of experts said in a report published Saturday.

ASEAN, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, must speed up trade liberalization within its own free trade area first and then tackle such pressing issues as seeking more access to markets in the United States and China, they stressed.

The Singapore academics made these points to a visiting group of Chinese academics at a round-table discussion organized by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

China's proposal late last year to form the 11-country free trade area was "more political than economic" to alleviate fears over its rise, said East Asian Institute visiting research fellow Shee Poon Kim.

The highlights of the session were published in The Straits Times.

Shee noted some ASEAN countries such as Indonesia were still wary of China's rise as an economic power.

"ASEAN members must resolve its own problems before it reaches out to northeast Asia," Shee said.

ASEAN groups Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma).

Leaders from the regional grouping and China agreed last November to establish a free trade area within the next 10 years, potentially resulting in an integrated market of about 1.7 billion people with a gross domestic product of US$2 trillion.

Despite the expressed benefits of an ASEAN-China pact, participants at the round-table talks said the two entities are still rivals in many areas.

Many ASEAN countries compete with China in terms of exports to developed countries, they added.