U.S. business leaders urge tough anti-corruption pact for ASEAN
U.S. business leaders urge tough anti-corruption pact for ASEAN
Agence France-Presse, Singapore
U.S. businesses on Friday urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to forge a pact to fight corruption, which is seen holding back investments in the region.
The American Chambers of Commerce in Southeast Asia made the call in a statement released ahead of the annual ASEAN leaders' summit in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh which opens on Sunday.
"We encourage the ASEAN community of nations to put in place effective legal and judicial measures and enforcement tools for eliminating corruption," said the statement issued in Singapore, which has been consistently voted as the least corrupt nation in the region.
The American chambers said a "good starting point would be a binding agreement to make it unlawful for business persons in ASEAN countries to bribe government officials and judicial authorities either in their home jurisdiction or in other ASEAN countries."
Such an agreement on corruption would be the first in Asia and "would attract much-needed positive attention from the international investor community", they said.
The statement came from the American chambers in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, which represent an estimated US$50 billion of investments in Southeast Asia.
Other ASEAN members are Brunei, Laos, Malaysia and Myanmar.
A regional survey by the chambers in June identified corruption as a major "disincentive" for U.S. investments in the region.
U.S. companies were "extremely dissatisfied" or "dissatisfied" with the levels of corruption, according to the survey.
In July for example, U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Francis Ricciardone, made frank remarks about the perception of widespread corruption in that country.
The number one barrier in the Philippines is "corruption, not just regarding the courts but also officials outside (the judiciary)," Ricciardone said.
"Foreign investors have complained about that to me and to other ambassadors here (that) we have a real problem here," he added.