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."