ASEAN, Hong Kong look towards free trade agreement
Preparations for the proposed AHKFTA negotiations
are now underway, after the endorsement by the ASEAN Economic Ministers
at the 19th AEM Retreat in March 2013 in Vietnam .
According to the Secretariat, the two sides shared the view during a
visit to Hong Kong last week by ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh
at the invitation of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Government.
During his visit, the Secretary-General
met with high level officials who emphasised ASEAN’s importance to
Hong Kong both as a rapidly growing economic region and as an
organisation. With ASEAN now as Hong Kong’s second biggest trading
partner after mainland China , there is much interest to pursue
broader and deeper economic cooperation with ASEAN.
Secretary-General Minh also gave a keynote address on the ASEAN
Economic Community (AEC) at the Credit Suisse Asia Investment Conference
(AIC), in which he shared ASEAN’s accomplishments in terms of the
regional economic integration and community building agenda, as well as
the remaining challenges in establishing the AEC by 2015.-VNA