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BURMA RELATED NEWS - September
15, 2001.
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HEADLINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - ASEAN ministers told global slowdown
leaves no room for complacency
Reuters - Vietnam says ASEAN must reform in face
of slowdown
AP - N. Korea Delegate Condemns
Attacks
The Daily Star - Singapore eyes Myanmar's fisheries
sector
Hoovers - Eyes on
Myanmar fisheries
AP - Chinese Editor Imprisoned for
E-Mail
Bkk Post - Casinos on
borders seen as big threat
Bkk Post - Status quo
in tension areas
Xinhuanet - Thirty-third ASEAN Economic
Ministers' Meeting Opens in Hanoi
Xinhuanet - ASEAN to Deepen Cooperation With
China
Kyodo News - ASEAN mulls faster
integration of regional economies
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday September 15, 1:56 PM
ASEAN ministers told global slowdown leaves no room for complacency HANOI, Sept 15 (AFP) - The
worsening global slowdown means southeast Asia cannot afford to be complacent in
its efforts to win back lost investment, Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai
told regional economy ministers Saturday as they launched annual talks
here.
The region had made headway in recovering from the financial crisis of 1997
to achieve a growth rate of 5.3 percent last year, but now it faced the fresh
challenge of a major falloff in demand from all its key trading partners, Khai
said in his opening speech.
"The global economic slowdown -- especially in the US, Japan and the
European Union -- has adversely affected our economies.
"Further aggravated by fierce international competition, the investment
flow into the Association of South East Asian nations has been declining.
"We should therefore not be prematurely satisfied. Instead we should
continue to reinforce economic reforms and development in each member, as well
as support and promote regional economic growth through intensifying ASEAN
economic cooperation."
Khai singled out the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and ASEAN Investment Area
(AIA) which the grouping plans to establish over the next decade as top
priorities.
In talks on Friday, ministers agreed to bring forward the deadline for the
creation of the AIA from 2020 to 2010 for the region's six wealthier countries
and to 2015 for the other four.
AFTA is to be launched in 2003 by the core six with later deadlines for
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Khai said ASEAN should not lose sight of the problems faced by the four
poorer states as it moved to accelerate its integration.
He hailed steps already taken to narrow the development gap and thanked the
wealthier ASEAN states for their technical assistance with Vietnam's
preparations for joining the World Trade Organization.
The communist state has the region's second largest population after
Indonesia, but its economy lags far behind despite a doubling of its Gross
Domestic Product over the past decade.
ASEAN secretary general Rodolfo Severino acknowledged there was no formal
agenda for Saturday's talks, even though it was supposed to be the ministers'
centrepiece meeting.
The key issues of trade and investment had already been addressed in
separate meetings Friday while ministers have been here all week for
consultations with their main trading partners -- China, Japan and South Korea,
the European Union and the United States.
Severino said ministers were expected to streamline the framework of their
meetings in future years.
"We will ... try to reform the format a bit so that it doesn't involve too
many press conferences, too many meetings," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday September 15, 12:59 PM
Vietnam says ASEAN must reform in face of slowdown HANOI (Reuters) - Members of
the Association of South East Asian Nations must press ahead with economic
reforms to counter the global economic slowdown and declining investment flows,
Vietnam's prime minister told a regional meeting on Saturday.
Addressing ASEAN trade and economy ministers in Hanoi, Phan Van Khai also
said the bloc needed to forge closer links with the United States, Europe and
other regions.
Khai said ASEAN countries "should not be prematurely satisfied" despite
pulling themselves out of a financial crisis in 1997 that brought most of the
region to its knees.
"We should continue to reinforce economic reforms and development in each
member as well as support and promote regional economic growth through
intensifying ASEAN economic cooperation," he said.
Khai said the global economic slowdown had adversely affected ASEAN
economies and investment flows into the 10-member bloc had declined in the face
of fierce competition.
While welcoming closer economic partnerships with China, Japan, South
Korea, Australia and New Zealand, Khai said ASEAN needed to "actively bolster"
its ties with the United States Europe and other regions of the world.
ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino said Tuesday's terror attacks in
the United States had added to regional economic uncertainty.
"We don't know what's going to happen to oil prices and stocks and so on,"
he told reporters. "It depends how long this sense of crisis is going to last."
On Friday, the ASEAN ministers agreed to speed up the removal of investment
barriers saying the global slowdown, increasing competition from China and
worries about the fallout from the attacks in New York and Washington had made
this task more urgent.
Ministers from Japan and ASEAN who met in Hanoi earlier in the week agreed
to study ways to build a closer economic partnership given swelling flows of
investment into China as it prepares to enter the World Trade Organisation.
On Friday, ASEAN agreed that tariff preferences would be extended to the
four newer members of the bloc -- Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar -- from
next year as a move towards closer integration.
The ASEAN ministers are to hold talks with Australia and New Zealand on
Sunday on market access and ways to strengthen economic ties. They met EU
counterparts at the start of the week.
The six other ASEAN members are Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Brunei and Indonesia.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday September 15 4:31 AM ET
N. Korea Delegate Condemns Attacks By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North
Korea views the terrorist attacks in the United States as ``shocking'' and
``very regretful,'' but does not expect them to disrupt inter-Korean
reconciliation, a top North Korean envoy said Saturday.
The comments by Kim Ryong Song were an unusual show of sympathy from a
communist country that has considered the United States to be its chief enemy
ever since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Kim, a senior councilor in North Korea's Cabinet, and 26 other delegates
arrived in Seoul for four-day talks aimed at reviving reconciliation on the
Korean peninsula.
Officials contacts broke down six months ago because of tension between the
North and the United States, the South's main ally.
After arriving on an Asiana Airlines flight from Beijing, Kim talked to
South Korean officials about the attacks at the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon.
``It is a shocking incident which we think is very regretful,'' he said.
``I think the incident will have nothing to do with the South-North talks, which
are supposed to handle internal national issues.''
North Korea's Foreign Ministry also condemned the attacks on Wednesday. The
North was put on a U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism after it was
implicated in the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air jet near Myanmar that killed all
115 people on board.
The United States, which keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea to guard
against North Korea, is a major aid donor to the impoverished North.
Earlier Saturday, South Korea's main opposition party rejected a proposal
by the president that negotiators from the two Koreas adopt a joint statement
against terrorism because of the recent attacks.
President Kim Dae-jung said such a statement would be an appropriate
gesture of solidarity. But the Grand National Party condemned the idea because
North Korea has been accused of terrorist acts against the South.
``If there is no guarantee of changes in North Korea's attitude and policy,
the anti-terrorist statement would end up indulging the North,'' said Kwon
Chul-hyon, a party spokesman.
Thomas C. Hubbard, the new U.S. ambassador to South Korea, said Friday that
the United States remained willing to negotiate with North Korea.
Kim, the North Korean delegate, said the talks in Seoul would mark a
``turning point'' in inter-Korean ties.
``Our delegation members want to commit ourselves to do our best to yield
excellent results,'' he said.
The North Korean delegation flew from Beijing because the inter-Korean
border is sealed and heavily fortified, and direct air travel between the two
capitals has occurred only in exceptional cases.
Kim Dae-jung flew directly to Pyongyang last year for an unprecedented
summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The meeting led to a series of
conciliatory gestures, including three temporary reunions of relatives who had
been separated before or during the Korean War.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Daily Star - Sep 14,
2001.
Singapore eyes Myanmar's fisheries
sector
AFP, Singapore
Singapore, which imports most of its food, wants to participate in
Myanmar's burgeoning fishing industry, the government said
Friday.
The Trade Development Board (TDB) and Agri-food and Veterinary Authority
(AVA) will lead 13 local seafood companies on a mission leaving Sunday to
explore commercial opportunities in Myanmar, the TDB said in a statement.
"The objectives of the mission are to enable Singapore seafood companies to
identify and assess new sourcing alternatives and to explore trading and
investment opportunities in fishing related businesses," it said.
"The mission also aims to increase Singapore's per centage of fisheries
imported from Myanmar over the next two years, and where possible, invest in
processing plants where we can value-add and export high value products," it
added.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hoovers
Eyes on Myanmar
fisheries
September 15, 2001 12:49am
The island state, already Myanmar's leading trade partner, is trying to
boost its business links with the military-run state by exploiting the
resource-rich waters off the country's 2,800-kilometre coastline.
A delegation of 13 Singapore seafood companies backed by the Trade
Development Board (TDB) arrives in Myanmar tomorrow to explore opportunities in
the country's under-developed fishing industry.
The objectives of the mission are to enable Singapore seafood companies to identify and assess new sourcing alternatives and to explore possible trading and investment opportunities in fisheries-related businesses, an official from the TDB said. The mission also aims to increase Singapore's percentage of fisheries
imported from Myanmar over the next two years, and where possible invest in
processing plants where we can value-add and export high-value products.
Fish and fish products are already a key source of revenue for the Myanmar
Government and the country's businesses.
Last year, exports were valued at US$218.3 million, according to data
supplied by the Myanmar authorities quoted by the TDB. The sector accounted for
almost 12 per cent of export revenues of US$1.82 billion, according to figures
compiled by the Asian Development Bank.
Singapore was Myanmar's third-most important export market last year and
its lead source of imports. Trade between the two was worth US$582 million.
Singapore's drive is founded on projections that suggest global demand for
fish could rise by a quarter over the coming three decades. Per-capita
consumption could rise to 20 kilograms from 16 kg by 2030, putting worldwide
consumption at 160 million tonnes, the TDB said.
Describing the fellow Southeast Asian country as a largely untapped market
in the fisheries industry, the Singapore agency estimated that the maximum
sustainable yield for Myanmar's marine fishing was 1.1 million tonnes. Of that
haul, less than 10 per cent was being exported, it said.
Last year, Singapore imported 150,000 tonnes of fish, the bulk from
Oceania, Malaysia and Thailand. Imports from Myanmar amounted to 3,000 tonnes, 2
per cent of its total.
Recently, the Yangon administration announced plans to boost fish and
shrimp farming. It said the area devoted to prawn culture would be doubled to
48,600 hectares by 2003, while the land set aside for fish farming would rise by
a third to 26,325 hectares.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chinese Editor Imprisoned for
E-Mail
The Associated Press, Sat 15 Sep 2001 BEIJING (AP) — A former Chinese
television editor who used a Hong Kong-based Internet site to e-mail political
articles to friends has been sentenced to three years imprisonment on subversion
charges, a rights group said Saturday.
Judges at the Intermediate People's Court in the southern city of Shaoyang
had planned to sentence Zhu Ruixiang to nine months in jail, deeming that his
crimes were not serious, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy
said.
But Communist Party officials overruled them and pushed for sterner
punishment, the Hong Kong-based center said. The court informed Zhu's lawyer of
the three-year sentence on Friday, the center said.
Zhu, 50, is a former editor for Shaoyang television who for the past three
years had worked as a lawyer, the center said. He was arrested May 7 by security
agents in Shaoyang, Hunan province, about 1,000 miles south of Beijing.
The center said Zhu was tried Sept. 10 and convicted of inciting the
overthrow of state power, a subversion charge the government often uses against
its critics.
He was accused of using a Hong Kong-based free e-mail service to download
``reactionary'' articles from overseas that he then forwarded to 12 friends, the
center said. It gave no details about the content of the e-mails.
Chinese leaders, while keen to tap the Internet's economic advantages, also
fear it could become a powerful forum for dissent.
Special police units monitor Internet sites and e-mail traffic. Laws to
prevent challenges to the Communist Party's monopoly on power have been expanded
to cover activities online.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - Sep 15,
2001.
Casinos on borders seen as big threat
Report warns of rifts with close neighbours
Wassana Nanuam
Casinos located in areas bordering Thailand will become a major national
security threat and spoil the country's relations with its neighbours, according
to a report by National Defence College students.
The report, presented to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday by the
college's Class 43, says the presence of a total 22 casinos in border areas of
Cambodia, Burma, Laos and Malaysia could cause rifts between Thailand and its
neighbours and pose a serious threat to national security.
These casinos, which have many Thais as regular customers, have the support
of some politicians, cabinet members and senior officials of the neighbouring
countries who benefit from their operations, the report says.
Thirteen of these border casinos are on Cambodian soil. The rest are seven
in Burma, and one each in Laos and Malaysia.
Some 70,000 Thais spend more than one billion baht each month at these
casinos, the report says.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's ban on casino operations covers only
Phnom Penh and its periphery, while Rangoon allows the opening of resorts and
casinos on some of its islands and border areas.
These facts show these countries want to reap benefits from the gambling
business, the report points out.
Mr Thaksin said afterwards that his government wanted to tackle the problem
of gambling addiction among Thais, especially those who bet regularly on soccer
results and those who frequent border casinos.
``Lately, I talked to a politician who has lost more than ten million baht
in such gambling.
``I was shocked. Anyway, that politician is not from my Thai Rak Thai
party,'' he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - Sep 15,
2001.
Status quo in tension areas
Wassana Nanuam
Thailand and Burma have agreed to keep their troops in disputed areas on
Doi Lang in Chiang Mai and Kuteng Nayong in Chiang Rai at the current
level.
A military source said it was agreed at the recent 19th Regional Border
Committee meeting in Pattaya that there would be neither reinforcement nor
moving of Thai and Burmese soldiers at Doi Lang in Mae Ai district and Kuteng
Nayong in Mae Sai district.
The Township Border Committee will, from now on, meet monthly.
The 20th RBC meeting will be held in Moulmein in March.
According to the Joint Operation Command, the BP1 temporary border
checkpoint at Kiew Pha Wok in Mae Ai has been closed on the order of Burmese
authorities wanting to clear problems with Shan State Army rebels.
Thailand and Burma will also exchange information on drug production bases
and smuggling routes in their countries as part of their fight against
methamphetamines.
Meanwhile, Internal Security Operations Command spokesman Col Burapa
Tahwichai said 89.6 million methamphetamine pills, 461.6 kilogrammes of heroin
and 52,000 ecstasy pills were seized by the Third Army and the Isoc Region 3
during October 2000-August 2001.
A total of 179,251 migrant workers from neighbouring countries were
arrested for illegal entry during the same period. Of these, 17,592 were
arrested last month.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thirty-third ASEAN Economic
Ministers' Meeting Opens in Hanoi
Xinhuanet 2001.09.15 10:07:17 HANOI, September 15 (Xinhuanet)
-- The 33rd economic ministers meeting of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) opened in this Vietnamese capital Saturday
morning.
Over the past days, ASEAN economic ministers held consultative
meetings with their dialogue counterpart from China, Japan, South Korea,
European Union and the United States on economic cooperation, focusing on
trade facilitation, investment and technology transfer.
The meeting will call for the continued implementation of the Common
Effective Preferential Tariffs to actualize the ASEAN Free Trade Area,
expand investment relations and narrow down the development gap in ASEAN
and between it and other regions in the world.
Issues on technical assistance to the four new ASEAN member countries
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, will also be discussed.
The 32nd ASEAN Economic Ministers' Meeting was held in Chiang Mai,
Thailand in October, 2000.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASEAN to Deepen Cooperation With
China
Xinhuanet 2001.09.15 20:23:19 HANOI, September 15 (Xinhuanet)
-- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will deepen its
cooperation with China after China enters into the World Trade Organization,
ASEAN Secretary- General Rodolfo C. Severino, Jr. told a press conference
here Saturday.
Responding to Xinhua reporter's question, Severino said China will
become more competitive after entering WTO. To face the challenge, ASEAN
member states have agreed to conduct competitiveness study to
explore ways for future competition.
According to the economic ministers who are here for the 33rd ASEAN
Economic Ministers' Meeting (AEM33), they will commission a reputable
international consultant to conduct an ASEAN Competitiveness Study which
aims to raise the competitiveness of ASEAN.
The Study will be tabled at the next informal meeting of the ASEAN
Economic Ministers in 2002 in Malaysia.
At the AEM33, the ministers also considered a draft report by the
ASEAN-China Experts Group on Economic Cooperation, which recommends an
ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (FTA).
Considering the benefits that an FTA would bring to both China and
ASEAN, the ministers requested for refinement of the proposal on an
ASEAN-China FTA for presentation to the ASEAN-China Summit in November
2001.
At the Summit in November 2000, the leaders of ASEAN and China agreed
to look into ways to enhance economic cooperation and integration,
including the possibility of establishing a free trade area between ASEAN
and China.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASEAN mulls faster integration of
regional economies
By Takehiko Kajita HANOI, Sept. 15, Kyodo -
Economic ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
explored ways Saturday to integrate their economies faster and maintain a
competitive edge in the fields of trade and investment amid the global slowdown
and cutthroat international competition.
Some of them said at a joint news conference following their one-day
meeting in the Vietnamese capital that Tuesday's terrorist attacks in the United
States clouded the prospects of the regional economy.
''The unthinkable has happened,'' Singapore Trade and Industry Minister
George Yeo said. ''The world has changed. There's no going back to the past.''
Rodolfo Severino, secretary general of the 10-member ASEAN, echoed the
opinion, saying, ''We don't know what's going to happen to oil prices, stocks,
and we don't know how long this crisis is going to last.''
The meeting followed their decision Friday to advance the completion target
year for investment liberalization for non-regional investors to 2010 from 2020
for the original six ASEAN members and to 2015 for its four newer members.
The step is meant to expedite the completion of the ASEAN Investment Area
(AIA) for non-ASEAN investors in the manufacturing, farming, forestry, fisheries
and mining sectors so that the region can attract larger volumes of foreign
direct investment.
The AIA would allow investors from inside and outside ASEAN to freely
invest in the sectors and have national treatment extended to their investments,
with each country making certain exceptions.
The original six ASEAN member states are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The four newer members are Cambodia, Laos,
Myanmar and Vietnam.
In addition to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, China's
rapid emergence as an attractive destination for foreign direct investment and a
major exporter of manufactured goods has also prompted ASEAN to speed efforts to
remove restrictions on foreign investment.
On the other hand, the ASEAN ministers reaffirmed the need to step up
economic cooperation with Beijing as well so that the world's most populous
nation can become a better market for ASEAN.
In this context, they agreed to continue doing research on the possibility
of concluding a free trade agreement (FTA) with China in the future.
A joint statement issued after Saturday's talks said the ministers
scrutinized a draft report by an ASEAN-China experts group on economic
cooperation, ''which recommends, among others, an ASEAN-China FTA'' and weighed
''the benefits that an FTA would bring to both China and ASEAN.''
While noting the experts group had put up a good report, the ministers said
they ''requested for refinement of the proposal on an ASEAN-China FTA for
presentation to the ASEAN-China summit in November 2001,'' according to the
statement.
On other issues, they ''supported the launch of a new round of WTO (World
Trade Organization) negotiations'' to promote global trade liberalization, the
statement said, referring to a proposed start of multilateral market-opening
talks at a WTO ministerial meeting in Qatar in November.
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