`No stringent pre-requisite for FTAs with ASEAN'

`No stringent pre-requisite for FTAs with ASEAN'

Jason Gutierrez, Agence France-Presse, Manila

ASEAN countries can sign bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) with the United States without stringent pre-requisites, other than reforms and a willingness to open up their economies, Washington's top trade negotiator said Wednesday.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick met with his counterparts from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Manila to sell an initiative launched by President George W. Bush for bilateral FTAs in the region.

Washington has already completed negotiations with Vietnam and Singapore and Zoellick said it wants to expand the program to other ASEAN members -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand.

The Enterprise for ASEAN Initiative seeks to create a regional network of FTAs, although there are no specific timetables for each country to strike a deal with the U.S..

Two-way trade between ASEAN and the U.S. reached US$120 billion in 2001, making ASEAN -- with its consumer base of $500 million -- Washington's third largest trading partner.

U.S. agricultural exports to ASEAN countries currently stand at $2.6 billion and could still increase if FTAs are sealed, officials said.

Washington, however, recognizes that there are some problems that cover all countries, so it will allow each ASEAN country flexibility to move at their own pace toward an FTA, Zoellick told reporters.

"We're not trying to use this as a hard and fast set of preconditions. We are trying to share with people our insights on what we think is important for economic development, how trade can support that, our experience with other agreements, and determine which countries want to move towards that level of integration."

Philippine Trade Secretary Manuel Roxas, who chaired the informal meeting, said senior ASEAN officials would be asked to come up with a "specific work program" for a region-wide trade and investment facilitation agreement to pave the way for individual FTAs.

The agreement could have "unique characteristics", including an "opt-in, opt-out mechanism" for some specific provision that certain nations might have difficulty with.

Zoellick noted the U.S. has been negotiating for similar FTAs with 34 countries in the West, many of which are included in its watchlist of intellectual property rights violators.

"Free trade is about freedom and openness. The prime point is that we like to try to help developing countries, democracies achieve economic reforms and build support for openness," he said.

President Gloria Arroyo met with ministers from ASEAN at the presidential palace and assured Zoellick her government fully supported U.S. economic policies.

However she pressed for ASEAN countries to be given more access to the U.S. market.

"There are barriers and sanctions that the Filipino people perceive to be adding to the poverty of the nation," Arroyo said without being specific.

ASEAN economic ministers welcomed the initiative and said it underscored the "importance that the United States places on enhancing trade ties to ASEAN."

They said the U.S. also agreed to support the entry of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to the World Trade Organization in line with its goal of establishing FTAs.

Zoellick reminded ASEAN members that entering into an FTA with the U.S. was "a particularly serious endeavor" that presents certain challenges.

For some countries, FTAs could be seen as a "device they use to help their own internal reforms." It would require individual countries to prepare comprehensive reforms and participation of the private sector.

The U.S. government, however, would not "force countries to move more quickly than they can," Zoellick said.