What are the difficulties the countries are facing promoting intra -Asean trade?
There is no promotion. Secondly, everything is consensus, no penalty. In AFTA we agreed that goods must be levied from 0 to 5% but that is not the case in many instances. We do not have Asean single window custom clearance. There are plans but the problems is implementation is slow. We are waiting for the charter to come into existence. Unfortunately, I don’t see a unanimous endorsement. Q: The five original members of ASEAN are well advanced as compared to the other five late entrants. There have been certain apprehensions among the former in the opening up of their markets to the low-wage neighboring countries, price being the root cause. Do you think Asean can overcome such hesitation? A: According to the Asean Vision 2015, there will be free flow of goods, capital of funds and people. But now they only want skilled people. But I think if we want to be a strong Asean we should not be afraid of that. That is our strong point. You have to think about the region and no only of your own
