EU seeks ASEAN investors for new member states
jurnalo
EU seeks ASEAN investors for new member states
Wednesday 07 February 2007
The European Union is seeking ASEAN investors for its new member states with a free trade agreement in the pipeline, the ambassador of the EU Commission said in a broadcast report on Wednesday.
"We have decided to start free trade negotiations with ASEAN," said Holger Standertskjold, referring to the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations.
"These negotiations aim at creating a much tighter relationship between the EU and the ASEAN countries," he said, adding the talks will hopefully start later this year.
Standertskjold, touring MediaCorp’s studios with a delegation of European ambassadors based in Singapore, noted there are currently 27 members in the EU, with Romania and Bulgaria the latest countries to join.
A number of the countries are not known to Asian investors, Standertskjold said. "I’d like them. get acqcauained with the so- called new EU member states," he was quoted as saying.
"We would like to see that it’s not only exports from China to EU and imports from EU to China that are growing, but also we would like to grow the ASEAN trade even more," he said. "It has been growing, but we would not like, for these countries’ economic development sake that China take over. "
ASEAN integration is very important in order to increase the grouping’s "economic stability," Standertskjold added.
ASEAN includes Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.
