Special market economy zones for Indochina

Special market economy zones for Indochina

TOKYO (AFP): Japan and other Asian countries have designated three sites in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to be developed as special market economy zones, international trade and industry ministry officials said Monday.

The officials said the three sites -- an industrial park near Hanoi, the Cambodian town of Koh Keng and the Lao city of Thakhek -- were being promoted as areas with a "high degree of liberalization" as models for other cities.

Master plans for the three sites are scheduled to be completed by the end of March and finalized by the end of March next year, one official said.

Establishing such zones is one of seven recommendations made by a working group set up two years ago by Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) along with Burma, Cambodia and Laos. ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Noboru Hatakeyama, a former vice minister at the Japanese trade ministry who now heads the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), is vice chairman of the group which held its fifth meeting in Phnom Penh in August last year.