Kuala Lumpur makes fresh plug for EAEC

Kuala Lumpur makes fresh plug for EAEC

JAKARTA (Kyodo): Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said yesterday the proposed East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) promoted tirelessly by his country is being wrongly perceived as a potentially divisive force among the members of the 18-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

"There is no ground for external concern that the EAEC would draw lines between APEC members," Abdullah said in a speech at the opening session of a two-day ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Pointing to the relatively trouble-free existence of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations (CER) group, he said, "If NAFTA or CER members within APEC cannot divide the group, nor can the EAEC."

"Open regionalism, which APEC subscribes to, does not and should not prohibit the right of association of like-minded countries," he said.

First mooted by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1990, the EAEC is envisaged as a loose consultative forum grouping ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea as its core members.

It would exclude such APEC members as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, some of which have dismissed the proposed caucus as, at best, a distraction from APEC and urged Japan and South Korea not to agree to it.

While the seven members of ASEAN -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- differ in their enthusiasm for the EAEC, ASEAN as a group has agreed to pursue it as a caucus within APEC.

A draft of a joint communique to be issued today at the end of the meeting says the ministers note "the increasing acceptance of the concept and the rationale for the establishment of such a caucus among the countries of the region."