Asean Economic Community on track for year-end launch
The much-awaited Asean Economic Community (AEC) remains on track for the year-end formation, said International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed.
He said Asean member states were now more closely integrated than 14 years ago, having accomplished many achievements in bilateral trades and investments.
"We've a very exciting future ahead of us, Asean has been a magnet for investors, traders and tourists.
"Asean has been a very successful regional grouping and we should be very proud, indeed every country is working very hard to achieve closer economic integration.
"We've been working very hard to create peace and stability and will be working very hard to promote better cultural relations," he told Bernama TV on the sidelines of the 27th Asean summit and related summits in Kuala Lumpur today.
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak will formally declare the year-end establishment of the AEC.
Mustapa said however, this is not the end of the journey as there would be life beyond 2015.
"The AEC blueprint for the next 10 years will be launched, containing a number of measures to achieve even closer economic integration," he said.
On the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreements, Mustapa said their goals were to reduce trade and non-tariff barriers.
"We've been working very hard for the past one year on RCEP agreement, but we've some ways to go and hope that this negotiation will be concluded by end of 2016," he said.
He also pointed out that more needed to be done to remove non-tariff barriers in the Asean free-trade agreement.
- Bernama
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