Disappointment over Asean leaders skipping business summit

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Arin Jira's complaint came during the 2008 Asean Business and Investment Summit (BIS), during which some political leaders from the grouping pointed to great opportunities ahead for Asean countries.

Arin, who is also a senior executive of the Federation of Thai Industries, said that the BAC was created by Asean leaders and was supposed to give advice to policy-makers on business and economy.

"It is a little disappointing that we will have very few Asean leaders attending this summit," he said at his opening speech given during the BIS at the Plaza Athenee hotel.

The Asean BIS is held every year alongside with Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which starts on Friday in Cha-am and Hua Hin, some 200 kilometres away from the BIS venue in Bangkok.

"This year, there are two locations. I understand the difficulties in logistics but we want the leaders to understand that if they want the private sector to be engaging in all the activities around the economic development, they have to support us. Support from the leaders is very important," said Arin Jira.

Among the government leaders scheduled to be present during the BIS are Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij, Deputy Prime Minister Korbsak Sabhavasu, Vietnam's Deputy Finance Minister Tran Xuan Ha, and Indonesia's Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu.

Asean-BAC, established in 2001, has the primary mission of promoting partnership between the public and private sectors in creating an Asean Economic Community within 2015. It provides the private sector's feedback on the implementation of Asean economic cooperation and identifies priority areas for the consideration of Asean government leaders.

Meanwhile, Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, in his speech given at the BIS, encouraged the private businesses to invest and trade more within the grouping's member countries in order to pave the way for a smooth economic integration.

"The business community of Asean is the real nuts and bolts of integration. The business community of Asean is the real driver of integration of Asean," he said.

Surin, who is Thailand's former foreign minister, noted that multinational corporations from the West appear to be more interested in individual Asean countries for investment than each of the member nations does.

One quarter of Asean's total trade of US$1.6 trillion came from within the member countries. Surin described the figure as "quite impressive" but added that "we need more of that trade among ourselves".

And out of the $63.3-billion Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) that came into Asean in 2007, only 15 per cent was from the member states.

"We want to see more and more of you in the entire landscape of Asean rather than just taking comfort inside our own respective borders," he said.

However, Surin also cautioned against "the temptation for trade protectionism."

"We must be ready to compete. We must be ready to welcome outside investors," he said.