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Reuters-ASEAN speeds up trade, side



Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Reuters-ASEAN speeds up trade, sidesteps East Timor

Thursday September 30, 4:02 am Eastern Time
ASEAN speeds up trade, sidesteps East Timor
By Valerie Lee

SINGAPORE, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN) showed it was barrelling along in efforts to build a regional free
trade zone on Thursday, but sidestepped the issue of troubled East Timor.

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong told the meeting of economic
ministers that the regional grouping should expedite regional trade
agreements and aim to move faster than the larger APEC trade grouping.

APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group of 21 economies, has set
its sights on a free trade zone by 2020.

On Wednesday, ASEAN member countries said they planned to turn the region
into a zero-tariff zone for the six original ASEAN member countries by 2015.

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

The meeting has a number of trade issues on its agenda, including items to
place on regional tariff lists of zero to five to percent taxes, plans to
market ASEAN as a region, and cross-regional free trade pacts such as the
one signed between Singapore and New Zealand.

Goh said ASEAN had been ``conspicuously missing'' in the flurry of world
Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), and the grouping needed to explore forming
cross-regional FTAs with strategic partners.

LITTLE CONSENSUS ON EAST TIMOR

But ASEAN's collective momentum slowed on the issue of violence-torn East
Timor.

ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino said on Thursday the grouping ``has
not taken a position as ASEAN on what to do about this matter, since it is
under discussion in the United Nations Security Council between Indonesia,
Portugal and the United Nations.''

Separately, ASEAN member nations including Singapore, the Philippines and
Thailand have contributed personnel to the U.N.- approved multinational
force led by Australia in East Timor.

Severino said East Timor would not feature in Friday's meeting between
Southeast Asian economic officials and their Australian and New Zealand
counterparts, and said ASEAN was not ``the venue of choice'' to deal with
East Timor.

He said the regional grouping was not formally set up to deal with the
issues of separatism or civil conflict, although developments of importance
to the regional security situation were ``always the subject of consultation
with ASEAN.''

INDONESIA-AUSTRALIA TENSIONS

Relations between key ASEAN member Indonesia and Australia have soured since
Australia's lead role in organising the international force to restore peace
in East Timor, where thousands may have been killed by pro-Jakarta militias
after an August 30 ballot overwhelmingly supported independence from
Indonesia.

Indonesia trade minister Rahardi Ramelan, sidestepping his Australian
counterpart's request for a meeting, late Wednesday raised the spectre that
his country could seek sources other than Australia for its massive wheat,
cotton and sugar requirements.