Self-reliance key to survive economic slowdown: Thaksin

Self-reliance key to survive economic slowdown: Thaksin

BANGKOK (AP): Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Monday that Southeast Asian economies need to become self-reliant to survive the global economic slowdown.

Thaksin said that to handle the demands of the globalization, countries must pursue a dual-track of developing domestic markets while exporting value-added products.

"Asia must relearn how to cope with this new environment. We all must become more self-reliant and cooperate with each other in both trade and investment to overcome this and any future crisis," Thaksin said.

The prime minister was addressing the opening in Bangkok of the five-day, 22nd General Assembly of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Inter-Parliamentary Organization.

Lawmakers from eight ASEAN nations and observers from Australia, Canada, China, Europe and the United States are discussing ways to ensure regional security and expand cooperation.

Southeast Asian countries, many yet to recover fully from a regional recession in 1997/98, are suffering again from a slowdown in the U.S. and Japanese economies, key export markets.

Thaksin said that the 1997/98 crisis exposed fundamental weaknesses in the Southeast Asian countries, which did not possess an early warning system or a mechanism to assist each other.

With the expansion of ASEAN to 10 members, the group is facing even greater problems in coordinating with diverse political, economic and social models, he said.

"We need to be more united and sincere in addressing our common problems amid the ever-changing global economic environment," he said. "Existing cooperative endeavors must be accelerated."

He said ASEAN countries - whose members range from least developed Laos and Cambodia to industrialized Singapore - should also concentrate on forging ties with neighboring countries through development cooperation.

He made his comments as Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, No.3 general of Myanmar's military regime, began a rare, two-day official visit to Thailand.

The two countries, both ASEAN members, fought military skirmishes at the border earlier this year. They are mulling development cooperation in border regions of Myanmar to reduce the drugs trade, which lies behind the bilateral tension.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Myanmar and Brunei are not members of the inter-parliamentary organization as they have no legislatures.