The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries can sign bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) with the US without stringent pre-requisites other than reforms and willingness to open up their economies, Washington's top trade negotiator said yesterday.
US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick met with his counterparts from the 10-member ASEAN in Manila to sell an initiative launched by President George W. Bush for bilateral FTAs in the region.
Washington has already completed negotiations with Singapore and Zoellick said it wants to expand the program to other ASEAN members -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Enterprise for ASEAN Initiative seeks to create a regional network of FTAs, although there are no specific timetables for the each country to strike a deal with the US.
Washington also recognizes "that there are some problems that cover all countries" so it will allow each ASEAN country flexibility to move at their own pace toward an FTA, Zoellick told reporters.
"We're not trying to use this as a hard and fast set of preconditions," he said.
"We are trying to share with people our insights on what we think is important for economic development, how trade can support that, our experience with other agreements and determine which countries want to move towards that level of integration."
Zoellick noted the US has been negotiating for similar FTAs with some 34 countries in the West, many of which are included in its watchlist of intellectual property rights violators.
"Free trade is about freedom and openness. The prime point is that we like to try to help developing countries, democracies achieve economic reforms and build support for openness," he said.
ASEAN economic ministers welcomed the initiative and said it underscored the great "importance that the United States places on enhancing trade ties to ASEAN."
It said the US also agreed to support the entry of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to the WTO in line with its goal of establishing FTAs.
Philippine trade secretary Manuel Roxas, who chaired the informal meeting, said the ASEAN economic ministers asked their senior officials to "consider the development of an ASEAN-wide" trade and investment facilitation agreement to pave the way for individual FTAs.
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