East Asian countries urged to form region-wide free-trade zone
East Asian Countries Urged To Form Region-wide Free-trade Zone
January 15th 2007
by Playfuls Team
East Asian countries must promptly form a region-wide free-trade zone to maintain its competitiveness as well as ensure stability and prosperity, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Monday.
ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said East Asia could take better advantage of its economic achievements by boosting regional cooperation in such areas as services, trade, investment and finance.
"East Asia has to chart a clear road map to establish a region-wide free-trade agreement," he told leaders of 16 Asian countries attending the East Asia Summit in the Philippine province of Cebu, 585 kilometres south of Manila.
"Unless prompt action is taken, the region may lose its competitive edge," he warned.
Trade ministers of the 16 countries that attended the East Asia Summit earlier agreed to start a Japanese-funded study of a free-trade agreement among all of them.
The proposed free-trade area will have a combined population of 3.1 billion people, nearly half of the world’s population, and a combined gross domestic product of almost 10 trillion dollars.
Kuroda noted that it was essential for East Asia to facilitate the cross-border movement of goods, services, capital and people to keep up its competitiveness and "achieve a vision of lasting stability and prosperity" in the region.
"Inadequate transport and communication infrastructure, uncompetitive transport and logistics services; and restrictive policies will all push up the cost of doing business in East Asia," he said.
In calling for the establishment of a region-wide free-trade zone, Kuroda noted that agreements being negotiated by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) with each of its dialogue partners "could pave the way for the establishment of an East Asian FTA."
He also stressed the need for East Asian economies to address key challenges relating to poverty reduction, huge infrastructure gaps and bottlenecks, environmental damage and other threats such as diseases, cross-border crimes and natural disasters.
"None of this will be easy," he said. "It would be desirable for East Asia to take note of these challenges and consider some suitable strategy to effectively tackle them. This will help in successfully forging ahead the agenda of regional cooperation and integration."
The East Asian Summit was attended by ASEAN countries Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, as well as dialogue partners Japan, China, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.
In a statement at the end of their meeting, the leaders said they "agreed to look into ways for furthering economic integration in the region, including considering the possibility of a track-two study on a comprehensive economic partnership agreement among 16 countries."
"We agreed that the ASEAN Secretariat will prepare a timeframe for conducting the study and will invite nominations from all our countries for participation in it," the statement added.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, chairman of the summit, said the discussions by ASEAN leaders in Cebu would help push the 10-member group to become "a dynamo as the hub and core of East Asia, immersed in robust, open trade from within the region and across the oceans."
"With the ASEAN moving forward towards firm accords on its own charter, security, overseas workers and trade, the prospect for the region becoming a formidable bloc in the world is well within our reach," she said at the close of the summit.
