KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Southeast Asia must integrate faster to keep pace with China and India, Singapore’s leader said Sunday as the region prepared for a summit, weighed down by frustrations over Myanmar, bird flu, and high oil prices.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) holds two days of meetings starting Monday before hosting the first East Asia Summit on Wednesday, when the 16 participating leaders will pledge to fight bird flu.
Their joint declaration pledges steps to control the disease that has killed 69 people in Asia since 2003, said ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong.
It will call for sharing of resources and stockpiling of drugs, he said. "The important thing is that the 16 countries will give their political commitment," he told reporters.
"It’s action-oriented,’’ he said.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien-Loong said in a speech that although ASEAN is bringing down trade barriers and unifying markets among its 10 economies, things must move quicker for the grouping to be a player alongside China and India.
"Combined, these two economic powerhouses will shift the center of gravity of the world economy toward Asia," Lee said. "In order to stay in the game, ASEAN must therefore take decisive action,’’ Lee told business leaders ahead of the summit.
The meetings come as ASEAN faces a reputation crisis over fellow member Myanmar’s glacial pace of democratic reforms that its junta has promised. ASEAN members also are fuming over the generals’ refusal to free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The frustrations of Myanmar’s ASEAN colleagues, under pressure from the U.S. and Europe to bring the junta in line, have been made clear to Myanmar, Ong said.
Myanmar has been told that the recent extension of Suu Kyi’s house arrest by another six months was a slap on the face of ASEAN, Ong said.
Asked if ASEAN is putting more pressure on Myanmar, he said: "Yes. There is a clear sense because Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines have told Myanmar that we have to do more because we just can’t simply follow what we did in the past.’’
High world oil prices and terrorism also will figure prominently in the talks.
Indonesia’s president told business leaders Sunday that East Asian countries could pool resources to build refineries and develop alternative energy sources, as well as deepen cooperation with the oil-rich Middle East.
"Some of us are oil-producing countries and others have capital to be shared in building refineries, in trade, in many things including in developing bioenergy,’’ Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.
ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — a region of 530 million people and a combined economy of more than $1.4 trillion.
But it accounts for just 6 percent of world exports.
The East Asia Summit aims for wider integration in the region, and puts ASEAN together with economic powerhouses China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia as well as New Zealand — accounting for half the world’s population and a combined economy of $8.3 trillion.
But integration appears years if not decades away, given the myriad tensions in the region, most prominently between China and Japan over Tokyo’s glorification of its World War II past through visits to a war shrine by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The visits also have angered South Korea.
A planned meeting between the leaders of the three countries on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit was called off by Japan.
On Sunday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said Japan must create the right "conditions and atmosphere’’ before the leaders of the two countries can meet.
Summit participants also held smaller, separate meetings Sunday.
Laos, one of the world’s poorest countries, asked South Korea’s help in drafting nationwide maps and providing computers for its Foreign Ministry.
A meeting among the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei focused on attacks by kidnappers and Islamic militants in their border regions surrounding the Sulawesi Sea. The countries agreed to Manila’s proposal to regularly hold joint patrols of the area, the Philippines said.
RP begins preparing for hosting ASEAN summit next year
GENALYN D. KABILING
KUALA LUMPUR (via PLDT) — With an initial P1 billion in funds, the Philippines has began preparations this early for its hosting of next year’s regional summit of Southeast Asian Nations.
President Arroyo yesterday took along several local government officials from Cebu to the 11th ASEAN summit so they could learn from, and possibly outshine, the hosting of Malaysia.
The province, which gave the largest votes to Mrs. Arrroyo in the May 2004 presidential elections, will be the site of the ASEAN summit in December 2006.
Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia said he will hold several meetings with the ASEAN Secretariat in the next days about the summit preparations, including security, lodgings and accomodations and protocol.
The preparations will include "everything from the point of touchdown of the plane to the actual reception, how the delegates were ushered to their waiting vehicles down to the billeting to the actual sessions," she said in an interview with Manila-based reporters at the Mandarin Hotel.
Kuala Lumpur plays host to the 11th ASEAN Summit, the First East Asia Summit and other related summits from December 11 to 14. Malaysians reportedly spent at least P4 billion for the staging of the summit in their country.
>From the one-billion-peso fund set aside by the President, Garcia said they will spend some P250 million for the construction of a "world-class multi-events center" where the summit conventions could be held.
The megadome structure, she added, would be put up on a four-hectare property in Mandaue City.
The province will also do some "spring-cleaning" and minor renovations of hotels and lodgings for additional presidential suites for the dignitaries, she added.
Garcia also defended Cebu as the ideal site of the international event because of its stable political and security environment.
"The local executives from the provinces and the towns are joining hands here and we are setting aside politics. I guess this is the Cebuano pride that allows us to rise above our petty political differences when we see that what we are doing is good for Cebu," she said.
On security, Garcia said the police can easily lock down the province for the safety of the ASEAN leaders and delegates rather than in Metro Manila which has a wide area of coverage.
She said the local officials also plan to declare the summit meetings a holiday to keep the public from the streets as part of security and traffic management.
"Cebu will certainly roll out the red carpet and do everthing that has been done in order to showcase our country," she said.
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia agree on joint patrols with RP
KUALA LUMPUR (via PLDT) — Leaders of Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia yesterday adopted the proposal of President Arroyo to conduct regular joint patrols in the waters of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines (BIMP)-East Asia Growth Area (EAGA) as a means to combat cross border terrorism and other transnational crimes.
The President suggested the border watch, initially two patrol boats from each of the four Asian countries, to attract and spur economic investments and development in the sub-region, according to Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCO) chair Jesus Dureza.
"It will no longer just be in the military exercises as what is happening today but a continuing security patrol in the sub-region area. This was welcomed by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei Darrusalam," he said in an interview after the second BIMP-EAGA Summit at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center here.
The President joined the BIMP-EAGA Summit with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah where they agreed to adopt the BIMP-EAGA Roadmap to Development to be implemented in five years.
Aside from pushing for the BIMP-EAGA growth area, Mrs. Arroyo arrived here yesterday to push for stronger regional cooperation in energy security and investments, counterterrorism, and maritime security in the summit meetings with Southeast Asian leaders.
Dureza said the joint patrols may involve the police and military from the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. But details about the joint patrols, including the budget, will be discussed among the four countries in the coming months, he added.
Dureza acknowledged that security threats, including the presence of suspected terrorists, have prevented any economic development in the sub-region composed of Mindanao and Palawan in the Philippines; Brunei Darussalam; Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Irian Jaya in Indonesia; Sabah, Sarawak and the Federal Territory Labuan in Malaysia.
He noted the Philippines, which chairs of the Customs Immigration Quarantine and Security matters in the BIMP-EAGA, considers security as important component for economic progress in Asia’s largest growth area.
In a joint statement, the four Asian leaders also agreed to adopt the BIMP-EAGA Roadmap to Development that would guide the stakeholders in the implementation of "doable, practical and sustainable programs and projects."
The focus areas of the roadmap are transportation, infrastructure, information and communication technology, natural resources, tourism and small medium enterprises.
The leaders also recognized the role of the governments and private sectors in sustaining BIMP-EAGA initiatives. "Therefore we have directed them to be more pro-active in realizing the programs and projects," the statement read.
The leaders of BIMP-EAGA also agreed to undertake the establishment of air links, sea routes, improve airport and sea port infrastructure to attract more investors in the sub-region. They also agreed to set up a BIMP-EAGA Facilitation Center in Kota Kinabalu.
Dureza also disclosed the Indonesia has proposed the setting up of an Energy Cooperation Investment program to ensure the sufficient fuel reserve for the sub-region.
He said move was in preparation for an eventuality of a "critical level of fuel in the growing sub-region consisting the poorest provinces of the four countries."
The leaders also thanked Australia and China as development partners in the BIMP-EAGA, Japan for its support, and the Asian Development Bank, the ASEAN secretariat and the German Technical Cooperation Agency for the continued assistance extended to BIMP-EAGA initiatives. (Genalyn D. Kabiling)
