Indian told to invest in ASEAN

Indian told to invest in ASEAN

JAKARTA (JP): Secretary General of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Dato' Ajit Singh, told potential
Indian investors yesterday to start investments in the region to
benefit from the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), which will
completely come into effect in 2003.

"Such investments should be made as soon as possible in view
of the fact that the implementation of AFTA has been accelerated
from 15 years to 10 years," Ajit Singh told executives of the
Economic Association of Indonesia and India in a gathering at the
Mercantile Club.

The current schedule of tariff reduction under a Common
Effective Preferential Tariffs scheme for AFTA indicates that the
average tariff rate will fall to 2.6 percent by the year 2003
from about 20 percent at present.

ASEAN has also agreed to eliminate non-tariff barriers within
the coming five years.

Singh said ASEAN has anticipated that non-ASEAN countries will
also benefit from AFTA, provided that they are ready to invest in
the region.

He said that even though ASEAN is closed for India in terms of
its membership, which is confined only to countries in South East
Asia, the benefits from free trade are not closed to India.

For Indian investors, Singh said, ASEAN is attractive because
it is the gateway to the East Asian economies, the world's
fastest growing region. Besides, ASEAN enjoys a stable socio-
economic environment and has a conducive climate for investment.

He noted that, for the ASEAN business community, India has
several advantages, including its large and growing market and
sizable middle income group.

"ASEAN and India should take advantage of their
complementariness and form more joint ventures to take advantage
of the growing trade and investment opportunities on both sides,"
Singh told the gathering, which was attended mostly by Indian
nationals and descendants.

Singh explained that trade between the two sides is indeed
small, compared to the potency that exists. The two-way trade
increased to US$2.5 billion in 1993 from $2.2 billion in 1990,
with a favor for India.

India's exports to ASEAN countries increased by 105 percent to
$1.5 billion in 1993 from 1990, while its imports declined by 32
percent to $991 million. (rid)