Singapore still keen on ASEAN

Singapore still keen on ASEAN

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Singapore remains committed to the Association of South East Asian nations (ASEAN) despite efforts to forge free trade pacts outside the 10-nation bloc, Foreign Affairs Minister S. Jayakumar said on Tuesday.

Jayakumar also told parliament that the tiny but economically powerful city state was keeping a keen eye on civil unrest and political developments in Indonesia and Malaysia, but took a long-term view of relations with its much bigger nabbers.

Economic and political turmoil on the back of the region's financial crisis of 1997-98 had hit investor confidence in many parts of ASEAN, driving funds to northern Asia, he said.

"We will work with others to overcome present difficulties and to keep ASEAN on track in important projects such as the ASEAN Free Trade Area," Jayakumar said.

"ASEAN is of primary importance to us. But of equal significance is our need to reach out and engage with the rest of the world."

Export-driven Singapore signed its first bilateral free trade agreement with New Zealand last year and has held formal talks with the United States, Australia and Japan.

Analysts say Singapore's push for bilateral trade pacts could spur its neighbors into boosting their own two-way agreements.

Jayakumar said ties between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur -- beset by long-standing issues over air space, railway land and Malaysia's supply of nearly all of the city state's water -- had improved and progress was being made on several fronts.

Singapore had agreed, in principle, to move a Malaysian-owned railway station from the heart of a prime patch of real estate to the border district of Kranji and to the construction of a tunnel between the two countries, he said.

But the issue of water -- particularly the proposed price of the Malaysian supply from 2011 to 2061 and beyond -- still needed to be resolved and an agreement forged, he added.

Singapore has had an often uneasy time with Malaysia since it seceded from its larger neighbor in 1965, powering forward in economic terms but also acutely aware of its small size and vulnerability in a region known for instability.

Comments by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in January that Malays fared better in the largely Chinese Singapore than in Malaysia prompted Kuala Lumpur to retort he should not be meddling in its affairs.

Mending relations topped the agenda during last month's visit by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Ties with Indonesia have also been fraught with tension over the years, with concern heightened recently by ethnic violence in various parts of the archipelago, its battered economy and intense pressure on President Addurrahaman Wahid to step down.

"We have always valued our relations with Indonesia," said Jayakumar. "However, there will be ups-and-downs along the way... We should therefore be prepared to ride out any difficulties that come along with bilateral relations."

Wahid lashed Singapore in November for being anti-Malay and ignoring its neighbors unless there was money to be made, but the two sides patching up some differences in January by hailing cooperation on a new natural gas project.