Singapore - Southeast Asian nations must integrate or risk becoming irrelevant in a global economy in which investors are focused on the emergence of Asian giants China and India, Singapore‘s prime minister said Tuesday.
"We do not have a choice — ASEAN must integrate to survive," Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, using the abbreviated name of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
"The rise of China and India has transformed the strategic landscape and created new dynamics within Asia," Lee said in a lecture, according to a government statement. "Companies and investors around the world are paying attention to what is happening in Asia, but they are focusing their energies on these two emerging giants."
ASEAN has been working to remove non-tariff barriers and free up the flow of services, investment and skilled labor across the region.
But economic rivalry among its 10 members, decades-old protectionist policies and domestic political turmoil are major obstacles to forming an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015, five years earlier than originally planned. The goal does not call for a single currency system.
Lee warned that time was not on the regional bloc‘s side.
"Many investors today see ASEAN as ten isolated, scattered national economies, too small to be worth paying attention to. If ASEAN‘s integration stagnates while the rest of Asia forges ahead, we will be left behind and become irrelevant," Lee said.
ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Source: www.iht.com (21 Agustus 2007)
