ASEAN: WTO ROUND SHOULD CONSIDER THE INTERESTS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

SINGAPORE, Oct. 20 -- The new, so-called millennium round of multilateral trade negotiations will help ensure the durability of Southeast Asia's economic recovery if the round takes into account the interests of the countries of the region, said the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Speaking at the East Asia Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum here today, the Secretary-General, Rodolfo Severino, said that ASEAN welcomes, in principle, the further liberalization of world trade, especially at this time of Southeast Asia's incipient economic recovery.

The ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, scheduled in Seattle next month, is expected to announce the launching of the new round of trade negotiations.

Severino stressed that, being committed to keeping their economies open to the world, ASEAN countries look to the new round to support their economic recovery and sustained growth. He predicted that ASEAN would benefit particularly from a significant liberalization of world trade in food and agricultural products, the freer movement of persons, and the lowering of tariffs on labor-intensive manufactured products.

He pointed out that several ASEAN countries are major exporters of agricultural products and of commercial services. Exports of professional services would increase if the movement of persons were made freer, he added. He also recalled that ASEAN had recently announced its e-ASEAN initiative, under which a comprehensive action plan is to be worked out for developing information-technology in the region and launching it into the information age.

Severino observed that ASEAN had generally low tariffs on industrial goods and would therefore benefit from the lowering of such tariffs by other countries.

The Secretary-General said that ASEAN had responded to the financial crisis and paved the way for its economic recovery in four ways: undertaking domestic financial and economic reform, proposing ideas for the reform of the international financial system, accelerating the ASEAN Free Trade Area and regional economic integration in general, and remaining open to the global economy.

It is in this spirit, he said, that ASEAN welcomed a new round of global trade negotiations.

However, he stressed, the commitments made in the previous round remained to be fulfilled. He pointed to the commitment of the developed countries to dismantle their quota-based system of limiting the import of clothing and textiles and to integrate trade in clothing and textiles into WTO rules and disciplines. He said that the developed countries sought to circumvent this commitment by integrating in low-value items first and pushing the bulk of their imports to the final stages of the liberalization process.

This, Severino said, shortchanged the clothing and textile exporters, mostly developing countries, so that the textile and clothing exports of ASEAN had actually been declining instead of considerably expanding, as developing countries had hoped.

He also charged that the developed countries often abused the anti-dumping agreement by continuing to impose anti-dumping measures for protectionist purposes.

Commitments to liberalize the movement of persons have not been fulfilled either, Severino stated.

The Secretary-General called for the admission of Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam, all members of ASEAN, as well as China, into WTO. The other members of the association are Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.