EU courts Southeast Asian business ties
(JAKARTA) - The European Union on Thursday launched a commercial charm offensive in Southeast Asia through the its first business summit with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
"After China, Southeast Asia is certainly the most promising for us in Asia," said Jean Rodesh, vice president of French distiller Pernod Ricard and one of some 500 attendees at the meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia.
"In almost all the countries, the middle class is growing strongly and wants to consume."
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono welcomed delegates with a reminder of the region's economic dynamism in the wake of the global financial crisis, which his country of 240 million people rode out comfortably.
He cited IMF projections that the global economy would grow 4.5 percent in 2011 and 2012, but the "advanced economies of America, Europe and Japan" would only achieve 2.5 percent.
The EU economy, he noted, was forecast to grow at a relatively pedestrian 1.8 percent in 2011, or about the same as 2010.
"Emerging markets will grow up to 6.5 percent per year," Yudhoyono added, attributing much of this success to the "dynamism of new economic powerhouses in Asia, Latin America and Africa".
"We are also seeing rapidly growing South-to-South trade. In 2008, 54 percent of export growth in developing countries is due to demand from other developing countries. The figure was only 12 percent in 1998."
In Asia the picture was "even brighter", he said, citing a Asian Development Bank report that by 2050 the region "could account for about half of global output and half of global trade and investment".
The EU is currently the second biggest trading partner of ASEAN after China, buying about 10.9 percent of the region's exports. On the other side of the ledger, ASEAN is the EU's seventh biggest trading partner.
Between 2002 and 2009 European companies invested an average of $10.4 billion in the region each year, according to EU figures.
Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said Jakarta wanted to boost trade with the EU by 20 percent this year from $26.99 billion in 2010.
ASEAN's biggest economy, Indonesia mostly exports crude palm oil, natural rubber, coal and cocoa to EU countries. Its imports from the EU mostly consist of motor vehicles and electronic and telecommunications appliances.
Despite optimistic talk about the "Asian century", the Asian Development Bank warned Wednesday that the region's rise was "not pre-ordained" and it faced "daunting multigenerational challenges" such as widespread corruption.