U.S. attacks cast doubt in SE Asia

U.S. attacks cast doubt in SE Asia

HANOI (AP): Southeast Asian economic ministers said Saturday the terror attacks in America thrust major uncertainty into global financial markets, clouding the region's outlook for growth at a time when it already is facing challenges from the slowing world economy and tougher competition from China.

"These events have added a new dimension to the uncertainty," said Rodolfo Severino, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose economic ministers were wrapping up a summit in the Vietnamese capital on Saturday.

"Global economics is always a very uncertain enterprise, but this has added a new element of uncertainty," Severino said outside the meeting. "We don't know what's going to happen to oil prices, stocks, and we don't know how long this crisis is going to last."

ASEAN nations, including some of Asia's poorest, were already shouldering plenty of worries before hijacked planes were flown into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington on Tuesday.

The simultaneous slowdown of the world's major economies -- the United States, the European Union and Japan -- already had been cutting into demand for many of the goods that Southeast Asia exports to wealthier trading partners. Although the economic impact of the terror attacks has yet to be seen, nobody is predicting it will be positive and some worry it could be quite damaging.

And China's pending entry into the World Trade Organization -- which will open markets of the world's most populous nation -- creates a new competitive threat to ASEAN's 10 members in terms of luring foreign investment.

Although the economic ministers here say publicly that China's admission to the Geneva-based WTO, expected in the next few months, presents opportunities as well as challenges, some ASEAN delegates concede privately they worry that just about anything their countries make can be made more cheaply by the Chinese.

To become more competitive, ASEAN is relaxing tariffs and has speeded efforts to eliminate measures that restrict foreign investment in its member nations. The goal is to create a unified free trade zone that is welcoming to outside capital.

"However, we should avoid the case where globalization benefits reach only rich countries while leaving poor nations farther behind," Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said in a keynote speech to the ASEAN ministers Saturday. "Let us join hands, and together with other developing countries, strive for equality and development of all nations."

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