ASEAN - 'ASEAN needs to work closely with EU to bolster economy'

ASEAN member countries need to work closely with the European Union (EU) to protect their economies as the region is still vulnerable to problems in more advanced economies, the bloc's secretary general said yesterday.

Speaking to delegates at the Asean-EU Business Summit which concluded yesterday, ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan said it was difficult to avoid spillover effects from other parts of the globe in an increasingly globalised world.

"In 1997, Europe told us to put our house in order," he said. "This time we appeal to Europe to put your house in order," said Surin, comparing the recent global slump which has hit a number of European countries hard with the Asian crisis of 1997.

To enhance Asean-EU trade ties further, Pitsuwan spelled out the following recommendations.

The first recommendation was to have ASEAN continue implementing international standards and for the EU to have better understanding of ASEAN laws and regulations, while providing capacity-building programmes for ASEAN companies trying to cope with the EU standards and regulations.

"Our response is the ASEAN-EU Trade and Investment Work Programme, and it was adopted by the ministers at the 10th Asean Economic Ministers Trade Commissioners Consultations last year," said Surin. He added that the work programme included sectoral dialogues sharing best practices, experience and expertise on mutually-agreed priority areas including standards and green technologies.

Surin said the ASEAN-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Negotiation Capacity programme also brought awareness among officials and the private sector on EU policies on trade and investment, such as new trade issues; intellectual property rights; competition policy; investment; environment; trade facilitation; trade barriers; barriers to trade on agriculture and 'rules of origin'. "We are pursuing all those issues that we have raised together with the support of the EU," said the secretary general.

The third recommendation involves the harmonisation of the market integration that ASEAN will continue to pursue by the year 2015, and for the EU to continue providing trade relations assistance to future ASEAN integration programmes.

"We are doing that and it is called the ASEAN Regional Integration Support from the EU, which auspiciously stands for ARISE," said Surin. ASEAN is going through the harmonisation of market integration with the support of the EU through its expertise and its experience.

"The fourth recommendation was the ASEAN-EU partnership framework, and we should promote bilateral partnership and framework to enhance it," he said. He added that the framework has to be "innovative and flexible" by prioritising measurable capacity building elements.

"The response from ASEAN is that the initiatives have already been undertaken through the ASEAN-EU FTA Negotiation Capacity Framework, and we are facilitating the process of the ASEAN-EU Partnership Framework through our intense bilateral discussion through these two mechanisms which we have established," he said.

Promotional activities of small and medium enterprises was one of the recommendations from last year's summit. Surin said that with the help of the Economic Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, the ASEAN SME policy is currently being put together as a comprehensive and monitoring tool for building competitive, innovative, strong and dynamic SMEs, while ensuring that policy programmes at both regional and national levels are there for SME development.

"We know that our SMEs are contributing to more than 80 per cent of our GDP and over 90 per cent of jobs in our countries are provided by SMEs," he said.

He added that it is important to come up with a successful integrated ASEAN community, and that SMEs must be encouraged to cross borders.

"We certainly welcome SMEs from Europe," he said adding that ASEAN's policy index follows the structure of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) policy index.

"It was successfully implemented in the Western Balkans, Turkey and adopted and replicated in other countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Easter Partnership Countries in the EU," he said, adding that ASEAN is learning from the EU's experiences and will follow and develop its own policies and support programmes for its SMEs.

"Sixth was the supporting of the European ASEAN Business Council (EABC), and we are doing just that, where the policy has been made at the highest level and this is the second time," said Surin, expressing hope that this exercise will be fruitful to help the private sector and policy makers.

On enhancing private-public sector dialogue, the seventh recommendation, Surin said: "We are doing just that and the exercise that I have just had with the ASEAN Euro Chamber based in Singapore has been very fruitful," said the secretary general.

The Brunei Times

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