ASEAN needs to double efforts to realize a community

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) needs to double its efforts on its way to build a community by 2015 and the participation from private sector is indispensable to fulfill this goal, officials and experts said Friday.

Prof. Hidetoshi Nishimura, executive director of the Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), said ASEAN is aiming to establish a single market and production base in 2015. To achieve this, improving connectivity is one of the key elements and the bloc should accelerate internal consolidation.

Addressing the symposium, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said they have only more than two years to realize the ASEAN Community by 2015, and that ASEAN's physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity should be given priority in guiding regional integration process.

"Ensuring the smooth free flow of goods, services and people by that timeline will be a real challenge," he said.

ASEAN needs to work more closely with its dialogue partners to secure additional resources besides the last year's ASEAN infrastructure Fund of 500 million U.S. dollars for ASEAN Connectivity, he said.

"The success of ASEAN Community can't rely only on the endeavors of the ASEAN governments, but also on the active participation of the private sector as well as that of our dialogue partners," he said. "ASEAN must be more integrated, more relevant, both politically and economically, where the private sector acts as an important engine of growth and development."

Hor Namhong said that to realize the ASEAN Connectivity, Cambodia is currently developing its physical and institutional connectivity and enhancing various economic corridors.

"We should make a strong effort to have an efficient land transport system, for instance, the Singapore-Kunming Rail Link," he said.

In term of soft infrastructure, more actions need to be pushed, such as accelerating the development of ICT infrastructure through ASEAN Broadband Corridor and reducing transaction costs across the border through Transport Facilitation Agreements, he added.

Speaking on behalf of ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan, who failed to attend the forum, Lim Chze Cheen, head of ASEAN Connectivity Division of ASEAN Secretariat, said there is still a lot of work to be done to move integration and cooperation forward.

He said with enhanced connectivity, ASEAN with its market of more than 600 million people will become more attractive to foreign investors and lay strong foundation for future economic growth.

"Infrastructure development will open up less-developed areas to trade, investment, and tourism, and further narrowing our development gap," he said.

While there is strong commitment to ASEAN Connectivity by the bloc's leaders, resource mobilization poses a daunting challenge, he said, adding that the Asian Development Bank estimated that ASEAN will require infrastructure investment of about 600 billion U.S. dollars over the next 10 years, translating into about 60 billion U.S. dollars a year.

"ASEAN connectivity will never be fully achieved if we rely on government efforts alone. Private sector can assume an immense role in this task," he said.

The two-day symposium was organized by the ERIA and was attended by officials from ASEAN member states, ASEAN dialogue partners, international organizations and private sectors.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Sourced: china.org