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Asean economic unity to attract more foreign investors: EU

AFP, Jakarta
southeast Asian economic integration would be a major boost for the region's efforts to attract foreign investment, European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said sunday.
"It's a huge market. If Asean members agree on creating for European investors this feeling that when they set in one of these countries then they can reach the whole potential of the region, we believe this is a strong incentive for the development of investment and trade in the region," Lamy said.
Lamy, speaking after meeting with economic ministers from the
Association of southeast Asian Nations (Asean), said the different levels of development of the 10 Asean member countries should not be a major obstacle for economic integration.
"singapore is obviously richer than Laos and Cambodia but this should not be a problem for trade and economic integration as long as the objectives of what you want to do are agreed within the Asean group," he said.
"The time it takes for country A to reach these objectives and the time it takes for country B to reach these objectives may not be the same. We in the European Union have this experience of merging together
economic and regulatory systems which did not have the same levels of economic development," he said.
Asean economic ministers on sunday ended a meeting which saw southeast Asia edge closer to a Europe-style single market, laying out a "road map" for integration and opening doors to wider global trade.
Under plans due to be ratified at an Asean summit in Laos in November, tariffs in 11 industry sectors will be abolished by 2012 -forming a common market in them covering 530 million people.
Regional powerhouses China, Japan and south Korea, Australia and New Zealand agreed timetables for free trade with Asean at
meetings which ended sunday.
Lamy said the European Union had yet to decide when it would start free-trade negotiations with Asean but stressed that the EU was working on closer bilateral relations with individual Asean member countries.
Under Asean's economic integration plan, tariffs on rubber, electronics, autos, textiles, air travel, tourism, agriculture, e-commerce, fisheries, wood and healthcare will be scrapped in 2007 between Asean's six more developed members -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, singapore and Thailand.