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Mahathir urges ASEAN to improve intra-regional trade

By Leslie Gatpolintan

March 7, 2019, 8:19 pm

MANILA -- Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday urged members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to take advantage of its huge collective population to maximize market opportunities, and enable the group to become a force to be reckoned with in the global economy.

“Despite having 600 million people living in Southeast Asia, we are still looking at ourselves as different countries, with different domestic markets. It limited our capacity to grow,” Mahathir, who is on an official visit here, said during the Malaysia-Philippines Business Forum.

Mahathir said ASEAN countries need to develop their niche industries which will have the market of the population of the whole ASEAN region to boost intra-regional trade.

By doing this, he noted ASEAN must be a “sought-after market” for Western countries.

ASEAN groups 10 countries --Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

For the Philippines, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the country will focus on various industries where it has comparative advantage.

“We are good in electronics, that’s over one half of our exports. We still have furniture and garments, and the key there is how do you differentiate your furniture and garments from your ASEAN neighbors,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of the business forum.

“So we are part of the value chain in electronics, we are developing our auto industries, shipbuilding, chemicals and of course, the agro-based (products). In agro-based, we have similar industry in general called agro-based but one would be strong on certain food origins, some would be strong in mango, coconut, on palm oil. So there would still be complementation of different products,” he added.

The trade chief also pushed the development of the country’s tourism industry.

“We are not that strong yet but we see the tourism industry now growing faster than before reaching new record levels as we do more airports, infrastructures, transportations, etc. And frankly, that’s one big sector that really Philippines can then develop,” Lopez said. (PNA)

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