Malaysian Prime Minister Abdul-lah Ahmad Badawi made a strong push yesterday for early action on launching an East Asian Com-munity to face up to the threats and opportunities of an expanded Europe and the free-trade area of the Americas.
Abdullah told the second East Asia Congress in Kuala Lumpur the time had now come for the realization of an idea first proposed by his predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, more than 13 years ago. The idea was dropped amid strong opposition from the US.
"We in the region have dallied long enough. It is now time to take the process of building our East Asian Community to new heights and in new directions," he said in an opening address to some 800 government officials, businessmen and academics from around the region.
Abdullah warned that it would take "at least two generations for East Asia to reach the European benchmark ... [so] the sooner we start in all earnestness the better."
East Asia could "work together to ensure that an expanded Europe and the free trade area of the Americas will not be a threat but an opportunity for us," he said.
At the same time, "we must ensure the strongest productive relations with key countries outside East Asia such as the United States, Saudi Arabia, India, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia."
The US is the biggest foreign investor in ASEAN. Southeast Asia is also America's third largest export market worth about US$50 billion, more than twice the value of its exports to China.
China and ASEAN have already reached a consensus that would create the world's biggest trade zone, grouping 1.7 billion consumers with a combined GDP of US$2 trillion.
ASEAN hopes to have its own free trade area beginning 2010 and a European-style single market 10 years later.
Abdullah listed six "cardinal imperatives" for a broader East Asian Community. It should be: "Egalitarian and democratic; omnidirectional and embracing, turning its back on no one; caring and mutually beneficial; committed to global empowerment; devoted to economic prosperity; obsessive about regional peace and friendship."
He also suggested the creation of an Asian or East Asian monetary fund, which would supplement and not supplant the IMF, in the same way the Asian Development Bank did not challenge the World Bank.
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