The CAMBODIA DAILY

First East Asia Summit Raises Concerns of Overlapping Asean

Article quoted from The CAMBODIA DAILY  ( Volume 32 Issue 92 Thursday, October 27, 2005 )

 Cambodia will join 15 other countries to form a new "regional architecture" for economic development at December's First East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Foreign Affairs Ministry Secretary of State Kao Kim Hourn said Tuesday.

But some countries are still apprehensive about the new group and question whether it way over lap with the functions of existing regional organizations, such as Asean.

The East Asia Summit and the long-discussed move to create a free trade zone in the region come amid controversy over the inclusion in the summit of Australia, New Zealand and India.

 The University of Cambodia held the inaugural meeting of its new Asia Economic Forum think tank Monday and Tuesday in Phnom Penh to stimulate public discussion of the new regional entity, which will also include all 10 members of Asean, along with Japan and South Korea.

 "Russia also wants to join, but the discussion is ongoing," said Kao Kim Hourn, who is also president of UC.

 " We have to put Cambodia on this big map, that we are not a Country that is forgotten, that is isolated,"  he said.

" We have to ensure that we can benefit from the current processes of regional integration and, of course, globalization."

 Finance Minister Keat Chhon, who spoke on Prime Minister Hun Sen's behalf at the conference Monday, tried to assuage fears that the summit would trespass on Asean.

He noted that Asean has stated that it will be the core of the EAS and that Asean members will participate in the EAS as a unified group, and " whatever form the EAS may take, it should complement the goals and objectives of the Asean Community and not dilute them".

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Kao Kim Hourn added that Asia's process of integration should not be compared to that of Europe.

 " Europeans focus more on institutionalization and bureaucracy; they're more legalistic," he said. " At Asean we are more informal." How ever, he said, Asean is already making progress from talk to action.

"Of course we will eventually move to more institutionalization,"  he said. "We will build our own house."