Japan, ASEAN Leaders To Push Stalled FTA Talks -Kyodo

TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and
leaders from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations are
expected to give a strong political push to stalled negotiations on a
Japan-ASEAN free trade agreement in their summit in December, Kyodo
News reported, citing a draft of a statement to be issued at the
summit.

The leaders are expected to order their economic ministers "to explore
measures to accelerate negotiations" so as to strike a deal "as soon as
possible," the draft says.

The leaders will issue a statement after their annual summit in the
Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on Dec. 13. The summit will be held
during a yearly gathering of ASEAN leaders with some of its major trade
partners.

The draft, a copy of which was obtained by Kyodo News, implies that
both sides plan to review their current way of negotiation, which has
not made much headway since talks were launched in April this year with
a target to wrap up by April 2007.

It reflects Japan's bid to play "catch-up" with its Northeast Asian
economic rivals China and South Korea, which are ahead in free trade
talks with ASEAN.

In a recent interview with Kyodo News, Ong Keng Yong, secretary general
of the Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat, said there are high
expectations for the leaders to give a strong political impetus to push
forward the negotiations.

"We hope that in the ASEAN-Japan summit, the leaders of ASEAN and Prime
Minister Koizumi will put down their political commitment in a strong
way," he said.

ASEAN and Japan have agreed to achieve a free trade area by 2012, with
a five- year delay for ASEAN's economically poorer, newer members --
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

ASEAN officials blamed the delay on Japanese trade negotiators placing
too much emphasis on pursuing bilateral tariff liberalization talks
with ASEAN countries with the aim of stringing all these together later
into a single ASEAN-Japan FTA.

They feel this has disadvantaged ASEAN by splitting them and reducing
their bargaining power in the negotiations.

Japan has signed a bilateral free trade pact with Singapore and has
almost closed deals with Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

It is just starting negotiations with Indonesia.

Ong said ASEAN and Japan recently tried to resolve the deadlock.

"It is not easy to negotiate a free trade agreement between Japan and
the whole region of Southeast Asia, but the important thing is that we
are still talking to each other, and now we have found new ways to
overcome some of our difficulties," Ong said.

He said trade negotiators from the two sides recently agreed Japan
should not delay its negotiations for a free trade pact with ASEAN even
as it pursues the bilateral FTAs.

Officials from the two sides have also agreed to organize more
workshops and brainstorming sessions to try to clear up some of the
snags before resuming their negotiations, he said.

"Instead of going straight into big issues to negotiate, we say that to
overcome some of these technical problems, let's organize workshops and
brainstorming sessions so that we can understand what are the
difficulties," Ong said.

The draft statement also said Japan will pledge its support for ASEAN
in capacity building to combat the threat of avian influenza in the
region.

Japan will also provide more financial assistance to the ASEAN
Development Fund, which is a re-launch of the old ASEAN Fund, and will
be used to finance ASEAN's projects to narrow the wide gap between the
more economically developed and poorer members.

The ASEAN members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-29-050529ET

Copyright (c) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Copyright (C) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


2005-11-29 05:29 ET

Copyright (C) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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