Asean single market push in hardest phase

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: Southeast Asian leaders meeting in Brunei this week
said they were making good progress towards a single market by 2015 but
talks had hit their hardest phase owing to protectionist reflexes.

But
despite the challenges, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations are working hard to meet the target, Philippine President
Benigno Aquino told reporters in Brunei where he attended the Asean
summit that ended Thursday.

"They have finished with the easy
parts but the accomplishments will not be as fast (when) discussing the
hard parts. When you reach that point, there can be some protectionist
measures taken by each economy," Aquino said on Wednesday.

"But
since we are focused on reaching the target, everyone who believes that
one community is beneficial to everybody concerned will really try hard
(to reach the goal)."

Summit host Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah said
Asean had already achieved more than three quarters of its targets
relating to its single-market goal since beginning the process in 2007,
but admitted there were still hurdles.

"In opening up our
economies, we acknowledge that there are challenges due to the varying
levels of development (among Asean members)," he said at a news
conference at the end of the meeting.

"Even so, we are committed to overcoming them in the interest of the region's long-term economic prosperity."

Asean
is a diverse region of 600 million people taking in oil-rich Brunei and
wealthy financial hub Singapore at one end of the wealth spectrum.

It
also includes emerging markets Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Vietnam and Thailand, with Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar the poorest
nations.

Asean wants to establish a common market and
manufacturing base so that it can better compete as a group with giant
neighbours such as China and India in terms of trade and investments.

Asean
attracted 7.6 per cent of the world's foreign direct investment in
2011, up from 4.3 per cent in 2006, Jaspal Bindra, Standard Chartered's
chief executive for Asia, wrote in a column in the Borneo Bulletin on
Thursday.

Bindra said Southeast Asia's dynamic economies were the "big growth story of 2013".

"Its
prospects are the stuff of envy for struggling western economies:
rising incomes and spending, an abundant workforce and gross domestic
product growth easily outstripping the global average," he wrote.

But
Philippine Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo said in Brunei that among
the many challenges for Asean in creating its economic community were
opening up the services sector such as banking, insurance,
telecommunications and retail.

He said that, on trade in goods, agriculture was among the most difficult sectors to fully liberalise.

"If their agriculture sector is large, they will protect it because there are a lot of farmers (affected)," he said.

Asean
is also expanding ties beyond the region. An end-of-summit statement
announced that talks for a 16-nation free trade zone called the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) would start in Brunei next
month.

RCEP will involve the Asean members plus Australia, China,
India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, which groups more than three
billion people and accounts for about one-third of global economic
output.-- AFP