Palace: Phl remains committed to Asean economic union

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines remains committed to a planned economic union in Southeast Asia even as Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said this was likely to be delayed by a year because some countries were not yet ready.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said on Thursday that the Philippines wants ASEAN targets to be reached as far as the economic roadmap was concerned.

Lacierda said the Philippine economy had been growing and is one of the most robust in Asia at present.

“So certainly we would like to have the ASEAN (economic) roadmap formed early. Unfortunately, the realities of the various actions taken by the ASEAN neighbors have not allowed us to form the roadmap as early as possible,” Lacierda said.

He said the reasons for the delay were “being ironed out by the ASEAN as a whole.”

He said the Philippines had always maintained ASEAN centrality in dealing with issues like the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) dispute that includes territorial disputes among ASEAN members and also with China.

“Let’s draft a code of conduct so that we can resolve all concerns on the various claims in the South China Sea,” he said.

The Philippines posted 6.1 percent economic growth during the first half of the year and was expected to meet its five to six percent growth target for the year.

Some neighboring countries, however, posted lower economic growth because of their economies’ links to Europe and US that had been experiencing various crises.

Earlier reports quoted ASEAN secretary-general Surin as saying economic ministers from the 10 ASEAN member-countries have asked him to delay the group’s economic union during a meeting in late August and he would put the idea to heads of government at a summit in November.

Foreign ministers decided in April that the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) should start on Jan. 1, 2015, he told a meeting of energy ministers in Phnom Penh.

“Your economic colleagues looked around the landscape and realized that they need one more year, so they have asked me to communicate with all sectoral bodies up to the leaders that we should speak with one voice,” he said.

The bloc would therefore be born on Dec. 31, 2015.

In Manila, Finance Undersecretary Rosalia de Leon confirmed that a delay had been sought but noted that it “will still have to be discussed in the meeting in November. It won’t involve just finance but other ministerial levels such as trade and energy.”

De Leon said from a finance standpoint, there might be hard lessons to learn from the financial crisis and troubles in the European Union.

The AEC would allow free movement of goods, capital and skilled labor across the region with a combined economy of $2 trillion and 600 million people.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, countries with vastly different political and economic systems.

Surin, explaining the proposed delay to the AEC, said a number of challenges needed to be addressed, including bridging development gaps between member-countries.

“The world is expecting us to get there all together,” he said, suggesting the AEC would lose credibility if it did not include all 10 ASEAN members.

A border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia plus, more recently, competing territorial claims by four of its members, and China and Taiwan, in the South China Sea have also laid bare diplomatic differences within.

Some analysts have suggested the AEC might not start as a fully formed bloc, and that its more developed members might have to push on with integration in a two-tier model, leaving the others at risk of missing out on regional investment.