Ong pledges to restore ASEAN image

Ong pledges to restore ASEAN image

P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse, Bandar Seri Begawan

The new secretary-general of ASEAN said among his first tasks is to rectify what he termed the distorted image of Southeast Asia which is dampening efforts to woo investors and tourists.

Ong Keng Yong, an ex-diplomat and currently press secretary to the Singapore Prime Minister, said some people tend to have an impression that the region was reeling from riots or kidnappings when such cases were in fact isolated.

"Whenever there is a riot in any of our countries in Southeast Asia, they assume that everything is like that in Southeast Asia, everywhere they go," the 48-year-old Ong told reporters on the sidelines of a flurry of ASEAN meetings in Brunei.

"I remember when I was visiting New York, people asked me how do we cope with this kidnapping of tourists. Actually, this kidnapping of tourists happened only in one part of Southeast Asia.

"This drives home the point that people outside of Southeast Asia do not have sufficient knowledge of us. So we must go and tell people that this is not the case."

Ong will take over the powerful post from incumbent Filipino free trade campaigner Rodolfo Severino, who is retiring.

The Singaporean said he would build on efforts made by Severino to promote the region, praising his predecessor for "a great job keeping ASEAN moving in the last five years, which have been economically hard times for the whole region."

Ong, who read law in Singapore before obtaining a post- graduate degree in Arab studies from Georgetown University in Washington, said he was awaiting a "specific and clear mandate" from the ASEAN leaders meeting in November.

Severino told Agence France-Presse his successor could be given "greater leeway and a stronger mandate."

At the last ASEAN summit in Brunei, the leaders sought a stronger mandate for the secretary-general, who is the chief administrator of the Jakarta-based ASEAN secretariat, and directed officials to work out the "specific terms."

Pending the mandate, Ong said "the overall philosophy would be to continue making ASEAN known to the rest of the world -- get investors to come, get business people to come.

Southeast Asia once led world economic growth and was a magnet for foreign investment but lost its luster after a financial crisis swept through the region in 1997, analysts said.

Ong said "the world outside sees Southeast Asia as more or less the same kind of territory -- what happens in case of riots or clashes between religious communities, well they see as symptomatic of the whole region.

"So this is an image we need to correct."

"Just like Europe, that patch of territory has 15 to 25 countries. What happens in a European country around the Mediterranean coast is not likely to be repeated in the European territory around Copenhagen or the Baltic Sea.

Ong said it was important for ASEAN business leaders to explain the "true" picture of Southeast Asia to those outside the region.

"If you are promoting Singapore, promoting Malaysia or promoting Thailand in terms of any particular business or investment, it is necessary also to sort of set the context that we are part of Southeast Asia, which is so big.

Ong said efforts should also be made to make the peoples of Southeast Asia "more gungho" about ASEAN.

"We may have our own respective national interest but at the end, it can be to our advantage if we are able to have all the citizens of ASEAN countries when they travel around or when they interact with foreigners to play up this thing about we are part of ASEAN, this is a place where there are many opportunities, there are things that you can do."

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.