Thai PM attends ASEAN-China Summit

NANNING, Oct 30 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont flew to this southern Chinese province Monday to join the commemorative summit marking the 15th anniversary of ASEAN-China dialogue relations.

China's official Xinhua News Agency reported that the upcoming summit is widely believed to lay a solid foundation for accelerating the establishment of a China-ASEAN free trade area, which will open up the free flow of goods, services and investment.

Both China and Thailand intend to use the occasion to build trust between themselves and the wider region. Once their were walls between China and ASEAN, but now China and the Southeast Asian grouping have a multi-level and regular dialogue mechanism implemented through the "ASEAN-China summit".

The China-ASEAN free trade area, which will comprise China, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, encompasses a population of 1.8 billion persons and realise a combined gross domestic product of US$2 trillion when completed in 2010.

It is expected to be the most populous free trade area worldwide and will be the largest free trade area amid developing countries, Xinhua said.

The Thai prime minister was accompanied by two key Cabinet ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nitya Pibulsonggram and Commerce Minister Krirkkrai Jirapaet.

Prior to the summit, Gen. Surayud is scheduled to meet Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and he will pay a courtesy call on Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei Darusalam on Tuesday morning.

The Thai leader will also hold bilateral talks with his Chinese counterpart in the afternoon.

The summit is seen as a vital venue for Prime Minister Surayud to further strengthen both bilateral and international relations with regional leaders and China, according to an official statement.

On this occasion, the statement said, it would provide a good opportunity for the Thai leader to explain Thai political developments to regional leaders, after Thailand's top military leaders staged a bloodless coup on September 19. The summit is seen an an opportunity for Thailand to emphasise the continuity of government policies to assure international cooperation.

Xinhua said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will hold bilateral meetings with the ASEAN countries leaders respectively on the sidelines of the summit. A joint statement is expected to be inked by China and ASEAN countries upon the conclusion of the summit, charting the future China-ASEAN cooperation blueprint.

Beginning July 1, 2005, China and ASEAN members began a tariff reduction process with the two sides gradually reducing or cancelling tariffs on 7,000 kinds of products. By 2010, China and six old ASEAN member nations -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- will impose zero tariffs on most normal products, while China and the four newest ASEAN members--Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam--will do the same in 2015.

The ambitious China-ASEAN free trade area project is based on the comprehensive and brisk trade development over the past 15 years.

According to Chinese statistics, China-ASEAN bilateral trade grew over 20 per cent annually during the past 15 years, reaching US$130 billion last year, 15 times the level in 1991. China is now ASEAN's fourth largest trading partner and ASEAN is China's fourth largest as well.

The trade volume between the two sides is expected to reach US$200 billion by 2008, two years ahead of schedule, as construction of the China-ASEAN free trade area is surging ahead, Xinhua said.

The World Bank has predicted that the China-ASEAN free trade area, upon completion, will turn to be one of the most influential economic powers in the Asia-Pacific region.

In the early days of China's overtures to ASEAN, relationships were guard, but by 1991, Beijing had diplomatic ties with all ASEAN members, and became ASEAN's all-around dialogue-partnership country in 1996.

Currently, China and ASEAN are in agreement to better implement a "strategic partnership oriented to peace and prosperity".

TNA