RP envoy urges British traders to invest in Asean

Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Cesar Bautista, delivered the keynote address at the regular luncheon meeting and dialogue session of the ASEAN-UK Business Forum (AUBF) in London, held recently at the Park Room of the Royal Lancaster Hotel near Hyde Park.

The AUBF was set up as a regular forum that would bring together the ASEAN ambassadors as a collective group that would promote the ASEAN region in the UK as a major trading and investment partner, because of its comparative advantages relative to other Asian countries or regions.

Speaking on the topic "ASEAN Abounds with Business Opportunities", Bautista addressed his message to the British business representatives present:

"ASEAN is one region you cannot ignore if your objective is to make your business grow significantly, reduce your costs and improve productivity, broaden your investment base at increased yields, especially in this period of relatively static business environment in Europe and in most of the western world."

The ambassador elaborated on several major points:

a) ASEAN is a big integrating region with a GDP of $800 billion, about the same as China, with a population of 500 million, about half that of China.

b) It has a high-growth, resilient economy, helped along by the continuing liberalization of trade, greater transparency, more accountability, and higher standards in both public and private sectors.

c) It offers boundless opportunities for foreign investors as well as privileges such as income tax holidays, duty-free imports of capital goods, long-term lease of industrial land, and 100 percent foreign equity ownership, and this scheme has been availed of by large Japanese, American and European multinational companies.

d) It is headed towards a "seamless economic region", with integration being fostered through trade facilitation measures in customs, product standards, facilitation of goods in transit to other countries, and financial cooperation; i.e, elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers as catalyst for greater efficiency in manufacturing and competitiveness.

e) With its liberal and transparent environment, ASEAN has become the fourth biggest trading region in the world, with Europe now as its second largest export market and third largest source of imports after the United States and Japan.

He stressed that amongst the EU, the United Kingdom is now the biggest investor in the ASEAN region.

Bautista, who was introduced by AUBF chairman S.K. Lingam, later answered questions from the audience. The session was moderated by Prinn Panitchpakdi, AUBF vice-chairman. The ambassador was presented a memento of appreciation by Tharntip Cowie, one of the founding members of the Forum.