Keating vows to further integrate with Asia
Keating vows to further integrate with Asia
SYDNEY (Reuter): Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating vowed
yesterday to further integrate Australia with the rest of Asia
and said he expects Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
nations to agree to a common set of investment principles at a
November meeting.
Keating said the Australian government was pushing for an
expansion of a current trade agreement with New Zealand to
include the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) Free
Trade Area (AFTA).
A link between the Australia and New Zealand trade pact and
ASEAN would create a market of 335 million people with a combined
gross domestic product (GDP) of US$730 billion, he said.
"This is an important proposal," Keating said in a speech to a
Sydney business seminar, adding that ASEAN members had agreed
that the idea merits further consideration.
Keating said he expected members of the APEC forum to agree to
a set of common direct foreign investment principles at the mid-
November meeting in Bogor, Indonesia.
Other APEC officials have said the group is moving towards an
integrated investment code, but the task is thorny due to varied
investment regimes in countries ranging from the United States
and Australia to the regulated economies of Indonesia and China.
"In November this year I expect APEC leaders will endorse a
set of investment principles that will define some common
approaches to the treatment of foreign direct investment flows,"
said Keating, who returned from a visit with Indonesian President
Soeharto last week.
Standards
He added that APEC nations were working towards introducing
common product standards to be recognized among all APEC nations
and creating ways to conform to those standards.
"Work on harmonizing product standards and mutual recognition
of standard and conformance arrangements is also proceeding
well," Keating said.
APEC links Australia, the United States, Canada, Mexico,
Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Brunei,
the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Papua New Guinea
and New Zealand.
They account for 40 percent of the world's population and
about 50 percent of its gross national product.
Keating said he wanted business to drive the APEC process,
while the Australian government pursued a link with ASEAN through
an Australasian-ASEAN trade agreement.
ASEAN groups the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand and Singapore, in which some nations such as the
Philippines, however, have expressed caution about an
Australasian-ASEAN trade pact.
Philippine President Fidel Ramos said in early June that
disparities in levels of development between some ASEAN nations
would be a concern in forming such a trade group, mostly because
of differing views on the speed of tariff reductions.
Keating said the reductions reached by the Uruguay Round of
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) trade talks in
December would not have been possible without APEC.
Officials from many European nations wanted full observer
status in the 17-nation APEC forum, Keating said, "The way to a
second Uruguay Round is the further development of APEC."