S'pore, RP aim for more cooperation

S'pore, RP aim for more cooperation

SINGAPORE (AP): Officials from Singapore and the Philippines agreed Monday to boost economic cooperation between their countries, an official said.

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Philippine Vice President Teofisto Guingona agreed that "more could be done" to implement an economic cooperation "action plan" established earlier between the two Southeast Asian nations, Goh's spokesman said. He gave no further details.

The action plan includes cooperation in information technology, tourism and other areas, said spokesman Ong Keng Yong.

Singapore aggressively promotes information technology, or IT, as a key to prosperity in the high-tech "new economy" of the 21st century. The wealthy city-state has urged other countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, to raise computer literacy and build Internet infrastructure.

In their discussions in Singapore Monday, Goh told Guingona that Filipinos' English-language proficiency gives the country a natural advantage because "most IT work is done in English," Ong said.

Guingona was in Singapore Sunday and Monday during an official tour of ASEAN countries. He is also the Philippines' foreign secretary.

Guingona and Goh also discussed how ASEAN "can be strengthened so that more foreign investors will be attracted to the region," Goh's office said in a statement.

ASEAN, a 10-member economic and political bloc formed more than three decades ago, has recently drawn criticism for failing to provide more help in dealing with problems, including Asia's 1997-98 economic crisis and recurrent brush fires in Indonesia that sometimes blanket other countries in the region with severe pollution.

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