- Southeast Asian countries moved a step closer to forging their own European-style single market here Monday, and also signed deals with China towards creating the world's largest free-trade area by 2010. The 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) sealed a six-year programme to fast-track trade liberalisation and regional integration to create a powerful ASEAN community by 2020, or earlier. Political reforms in military-ruled Myanmar following a leadership shake-up and violence in Thailand's restive southern provinces cast a shadow over their two-day summit, but discussions on the concerns were limited to sideline talks. The six-year plan foresees the removal of tariffs for products by 2010 for ASEAN's six more developed members -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- and 2015 for less-developed Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. ASEAN members signed a separate agreement to liberalise tariffs in 11 key sectors, including autos, textiles and electronics, by 2007 for their six more developed members and 2012 for the other four. These are key measures in ASEAN's vision to establish a single market of more than 500 million people by 2020, to forge an economic bloc capable of standing up to rising competitors such as India and China. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and his ASEAN counterparts meanwhile signed historic trade pacts to pave the way for the world's biggest free-trade zone by 2010, covering nearly two billion people. The pacts include an agreement to liberalise tariff and non-tariff barriers on traded goods and one to set up a mechanism to resolve trade disputes. Our economies have a great deal of complementarity. It's important for both parties to promote their cooperation going forward, Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing told AFP. ASEAN also plans to start free trade negotiations with Japan and South Korea next year, while Australia and New Zealand, attending an ASEAN summit for the first time, hope to announce the start of their own talks on a free trade deal. Australian Prime Minister John Howard arrived in Laos for the summit under pressure to sign ASEAN's non-aggression pact, amid concerns in the region about his threats to carry out pre-emptive strikes on foreign terror bases. But Howard has resisted, saying that signing the treaty would prevent Canberra from criticising other member countries over issues such as human rights. The pact bars ASEAN from interfering in the domestic affairs of its members, a clause Thailand has used to try to suppress the summit raising Muslim unrest that has left more than 550 people dead in the south this year. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra threatened to walk out of the summit if leaders raised the unrest, which in particular concerns ASEAN members Malaysia and Indonesia, both Muslim-majority nations. Thaksin met Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi late Sunday to soothe tensions over his stance, and it was not raised in the leaders' meeting Monday. ASEAN is also worried about the slow pace of democratic reform in Myanmar, which on Monday extended opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's period of house arrest for another year, according to her party and security officials. The internationally condemned Myanmar regime takes over chairmanship of the ASEAN in 2006, a potential source of embarrassment for the group. (AFP)
