KL urges rejection of EU investment pact

KL urges rejection of EU investment pact

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): Malaysia is urging developing countries
to reject a multilateral investment agreement that is being
pushed by the European Union (EU), Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad said.

Speaking late on Sunday after returning from a 16-day trip to
Africa and Europe, Mahathir said the EU planned to raise the
agreement at December's meeting of the World Trade Organization
(WTO) in Singapore, the national news agency Bernama said.

The pact, Mahathir declared, would make developing countries
"colonies of the West which is what they (the EU) intend".

"They still wish to dominate the whole world," Bernama quoted
Mahathir as saying.

The multilateral investment agreement (MIA) seeks to give
"national treatment" to foreign firms investing in any country.
That means they would be given the same rights and operate under
the same rules as local industries.

It also seeks to make more transparent the rules and
regulations governing foreign investment and to criminalize
bribery and under-the-table payments, Western diplomats said.

The European Union is pushing the pact under the auspices of
the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva with a view to
introducing it at the ministerial meeting in Singapore. But there
has been no final agreement on the pact, diplomats said.

A separate market-opening agreement on telecommunications is
being negotiated in Geneva.

Mahathir said the move to introduce the agreement showed
Europe is seeking to dominate the finance and telecommunications
sectors in particular.

By controlling the telecommunications sector, the Europeans
could dominate the broadcasting industry "to spread their own
propaganda", he said.

The draft of the telecommunications agreement was completed
last week in Geneva but Malaysia and seven other developing
nations have formally opposed it.

The United States has reportedly offered to open its domestic
telecommunications market to foreign competition as part of a
concerted bid with the EU to get a global pact in the booming
sector.

But Washington has insisted it wants much better offers from
key Asian powers, sitting on potentially lucrative
telecommunication markets, before pledging irrevocably to open
its markets to all comers.

Mahathir said he would raise the matter at the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Manila later this month.
"We will object...we will not agree," he said