ASEAN: The Talking Shop

Bali (Indonesia), Nov.17 (ANI): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Bali today to take part in the 19th ASEAN Summit and sixth East Asia Summit at Nusa Dua.

During his stay in Bali, Dr. Singh, who has described India's partnership with ASEAN as an essential component of New Delhi's "Look East" policy, will review the implementation of the India-ASEAN Plan of Action for the period 2010-2015, convince the 10-member ASEAN grouping about considering bilateral Free Trade Agreements in the services sector and have several bilateral interactions on the summit's sidelines.

Before leaving for Bali this morning, Dr. Singh said: "The level of our engagement with the ASEAN as a group and with individual ASEAN Member States has gone up qualitatively in the last few years. This is reflected in the areas of trade and investment, capacity-building, connectivity, people-to-people and institutional linkages."

"We have agreed upon an ambitious India-ASEAN Plan of Action for 2010-2015. I will review the implementation of the Plan of Action with the ASEAN Leaders," he added.

Stating that next year New Delhi will host the India-ASEAN Summit for the first time to commemorate 20 years of the country's dialogue partnership with ASEAN, Dr. Singh said: "I will have the opportunity to share our ideas for the Commemorative Summit with ASEAN leaders in Bali."

Commenting on the East Asia Summit, he described it as "the principal forum to devise an open and inclusive architecture of regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. This year's Summit will see the formal entry into the East Asia Summit process of the United States and Russia. As a founding member, India is part of several initiatives taken by the East Asia Summit to create an economic community in the region such as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia (CEPEA)."

Asserting that political and security issues are becoming part of the East Asia Summit agenda, Dr. Singh said: "There are concerns among the countries of the region over issues relating to disaster management, maritime security, terrorism and other non-traditional threats to security. I look forward to an open, frank and productive discussion on all these issues."

ASEAN gives the impression of being a fragmented grouping of ten nations with disparate economies and political ideologies that seek to create an economic community like the EU (European Union), but seem more like a talking shop achieving very little.

For a decade, this grouping has achieved a moderate economic growth of six to seven percent. ASEAN has a total population of more than 600 million and forecast GDP of 1.8 trillion dollars this year.

The ASEAN member states of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are keen to work together to promote investment in the region as well as exchange information and experience in efforts to boost investment.

With the Euro zone crisis showing no signs of ebbing and export markets facing the brunt, ASEAN wants to shed its image of being just a slothful grouping and speed up the creation of a common market.

Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan had earlier told reporters "It's an opportune time given the uncertainties that are happening in Western European countries and in the US," for ASEAN to "behave more collectively."

Over 700 business professionals from ASEAN member and partner countries have arrived in Nusa Dua, to take part in the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit.

Improving the investment climate in the ASEAN is critical to supporting free investment flows envisioned for the ASEAN Economic Community that is aimed to be created by 2015.

The ASEAN Competition Conference convened here in Nusa Dua raised public awareness and support for competition in ASEAN by providing a platform for discussion and networking among competitors and competition related authorities and stakeholders in intra and extra ASEAN.

Participants said that lessons and insights gained during the conferences held here would be useful in assisting Expert Groups and Member States to chart the way forward for activities in the field of competition.

ASEAN plus economic ministers are discussing a proposal to create a fresh regional economic cooperation framework that will consist of general elements of free trade areas that had been previously signed by ASEAN and the five FTA partners.

The proposal came up when it seemed apparent that four ASEAN members-Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand were moving to join the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, which could damage the fragile unity of the ASEAN. As it is ASEAN has the disrepute of being a mish mash club of military regimes, benevolent dictatorships and fledgling democracies, which are unable to streamline their own economies, let aside integrate the economies of the grouping and drop barriers.

Sitting beside each other are Singapore and Malaysia and Laos and then Myanmar, which have little in common in either their governments or economies.

There are concerns that the 10 Southeast Asian nations may decline like the EU, as their economies are not equal and ASEAN leaders have different political agendas.

"Some countries are advanced, some still need to catch up, but it's our commitment to reach this ASEAN economic integration by 2015. And we are still on track," Indonesian Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo told a press briefing.

Concern is growing among member nations that despite the ASEAN grouping's assurances it may decline and rival political agendas may hijack future economic growth. By Smita Prakash (ANI)