Asean improving investment, trade climate, US businesses told
Asean improving investment, trade climate, US businesses told
Asean member countries are continuing to improve their investment climate and trade-facilitated procedures in an attempt to draw in greater investment and increase trade volume, Asean Secretary General Le Luong Minh told US businesses last week.
Mr Minh made the comment at the Joint Council Meeting of the US-Asean Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement during the 3rd Asean Economic Ministers' Roadshow to the United States held in San Francisco, the United States from February 17-18.
The Asean economic ministers, US Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman and US senior State Department and Department of Commerce officials attended the event, which was a sideline event of the Special US-Asean Summit held from February 15-16 in Sunnylands, California.
Many Asean and US businesspeople attending the meeting shared common interests, questioning if Asean, the 10-member regional bloc has created common trade rules to facilitate free flow of traded goods and investment in the region following the formation of the Asean Community, especially the Asean economic community at the end of last year.
Asean Secretary General Le Luong Minh told the meeting that Asean member countries are continuing to improve their governance and creating common trade rules conducive for facilitating better investment and trade in the region with a combined market of more than 600 million consumers.
In her remarks, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Laos as Asean Chair for 2016, Ms Khemmani Pholsena said Laos was ready to work with Asean member countries to further improve the investment and trade climate in the region.
“Early last year, the Lao PDR undertook preparations for its Asean Chairmanship and set eight priority deliverables in the area of the Asean Economic Community,” she told the meeting.
The eight areas include the Asean trade facilitation framework, Asean regulatory framework for food safety, institutional framework on access to finance, creating an SME enabling environment, business registration processes, and guidelines for special economic zones.
“The priority deliverables will benefit regional economic integration and at the same time contribute to advancing the Lao PDR's national priorities and integration into Asean,” she said.
President and CEO of the US-Asean Business Council Alexander Feldman said Asean matters for the US as the regional bloc has been one of the US's key trade and investment partners.
Statistics showed that Asean countries are collectively the United States' fourth-largest trading partner. The total United States investment in Asean is more than the combined US investment in China and India, and in 2014 reached US$13 billion or 10 percent of Asean's total foreign direct investment.
More than 500,000 American jobs are now supported by trade in goods and services with Asean.
Given that US investors have not been active in some Asean countries, Adjunct Senior Fellow of the East-West Centre based in Hawaii, Charles B. Salmon Jr., said it is important for a country to establish a rule-based investment environment where businesses enjoy fair business competition and treatment in order to attract foreign investment.
He added that awarding favour to individual investors through irregular means would undermine their efforts in attracting investment.
Mr Salmon made the comment during a meeting with Asean journalists who were on a reporting tour in the US to cover the summit.
The discussions of the Joint Council Meeting took into account the summit's focus on promoting an innovative, entrepreneurial Asean economic community.
Among the areas of cooperation raised at the meeting was the proposed Asean connect initiative which aims to provide a framework for engagement between the US and Asean in four areas – Connect Energy, Connect Business, Connect Policies and Connect Innovation as well as the US's setting up of three Asean Connect centres in Bangkok, Jakarta and Singapore.
