By DPA
Singapore : The Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) must complete economic integration in the next three to five years or China and India would bypass the region, the bloc’s trade ministers said Sunday.
Leaders of the 10-member Asean are scheduled to sign a blueprint for economic integration by 2015 during their annual summit in Singapore this week.
“Either Asean gets into the act or (economic) integration will bypass Asean and will involve new players like China and India and other emerging economies,” Singapore Trade Minister Lim Hng Kiang said ahead of the leaders’ summit.
“The thinking is that Asean has this window of opportunity in the next three to five years to get this economic integration done, so as to be able to compete with India and China,” he added.
Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangetsu added that while creating a free trade zone among Asean members presents difficulties and challenges, the region needed to act now to be able to compete.
“We cannot stop the clock,” he said. “We need to make ourselves more competitive.”
Asean groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank, said Asean can and should be an example to the group’s neighbours of how economic cooperation can improve regional integration.
“Asean is uniquely positioned to act as de facto regional hub of wider economic cooperation and integration within East Asia and eventually across Asia as a whole,” he told delegates at the Asean Business and Investment Summit.
Kuroda said economic cooperation and integration was important for the region’s sustainable development, noting that bridging the development gap between Asean countries would continue to be a key challenge.