East Asia meeting focuses on regional economic development

The 3rd East Asia Summit (EAS) on August 24 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, sought to accelerate activities promoting trade among EAS countries.

Held on the margins of the 47th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting (AEM) and related meetings, the event was attended by the ministers of economy from the ten ASEAN member states, Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia, and the United States.

Vietnam sent Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu to the event.

The ministers discussed regional and global economic development, including the establishment of an ASEAN Economic Community by the end of 2015.

They exchanged views on key issues raised in the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) researches, notably the Comprehensive Asia Development Plan (CADP) 2.0: Infrastructure for Connectivity and Innovation.

They also talked about the collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to improve database on non-tariff measures for ASEAN.

The officials welcomed the statement of ERIA which pointed out gaps and put forward proposals for tightening regional connectivity, and ratified those feasible to ASEAN as well as EAS nations.

They agreed on the significance of the EAS Economic Ministers’ Meeting and believed its agenda will be further expanded in the future.

Statistics by ASEAN show that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all EAS participating countries saw a surge from 40.5 trillion USD in 2013 to 42 trillion USD last year. Total trade between the ASEAN member states and the non-ASEAN EAS nations grew by 1.1 percent annually to 1.1 trillion USD in 2014.

Eight non-ASEAN EAS countries accounted for 43.9 percent of ASEAN’s total trade while foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows from the non-ASEAN EAS nations hit 46.6 billion USD, or 34.2 percent of ASEAN’s total FDI in 2014.-VNA