Speeding up AFTA

Speeding up AFTA

Last week the foreign ministers of the seven ASEAN countries
met in a routine annual meeting in Brunei Darussalam. One of the
economic issues that was brought up was a proposal from the host
country to speed up the establishment of AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade
Area) and move it from 2003, as initially planned, to the year
2000.

The various views published in the media indicate that the
objections to the proposal made by the Sultan of Brunei are not
strong enough. The impression is that an earlier establishment of
AFTA will benefit us. It would not only provide our national
business world with a concrete training ground, it would also
prompt us into finishing our homework of resolving the problems
that still encumber our national economy.

Nevertheless, we will be better able to control the different
variables when competing in a limited environment. We would also
have the influence to discuss the relevant matters whenever we
feel that the negative free trade impacts become too heavy for
our national economy to bear. Things will be entirely different
once we have to confront the global market, in which there will
certainly be a good deal more players than just the seven member
countries of ASEAN.

We tend to concur with such a view since we are well aware of
the problems and challenges we are facing. We have an interest in
the immediate elimination of all the obstacles that are in the
way of the market mechanism.

-- Kompas, Jakarta