Greater Transparency, Good Governance ASEAN's Main Focus

By Siti Radziah Hamzah KUALA LUMPUR, April 27 (Bernama) -- Greater transparency and good corporate governance are among ASEAN's main focus towards providing a cohesive business environment. ASEAN Deputy Secretary-General for the Asean Economic Community (AEC) Dr Lim Hong Hin said efforts are in place to simplify and streamline all procedures for the business environment. "Under the ASEAN integration, we have been trying to harmonise, simplify, streamline procedures to make it transparent. "If the private sector is interested in working and investing in the region, they know what the procedures are," he told reporters when asked to comment on the proposed ASEAN Integrity Community by Transparency International, here Sunday. Transparency International, a global non-governmental organisation devoted to combat corruption, had urged the ASEAN leaders to create a regional body that integrates anti-corruption principles into the framework of a proposed regional economic community. It said that a regional coordinating body, or ASEAN Integrity Community is needed to fast track critical anti-corruption policy measures into the AEC framework and the ASEAN post-2020 vision. "We are trying to ease some of the procedures so that we can lower the transaction cost and also the time for them to do business," Lim said after the 13th ASEAN Economic Community Council Meeting at the 26th Malaysian-chaired ASEAN Summit. Lim also pointed out that ASEAN would not replicate the European Union (EU) framework as it progressed towards the AEC by year-end. He stressed that there were a lot of lessons to be learned from other regional blocs, including the EU, rather than relying on a specific model to follow through. "One of the challenges is economic development. When we talk about the ratio between the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita country to the lowest GDP per capita country, in the EU it is at 1:15. "Whereas, for ASEAN, it is 1:60. The magnitude of the development gap is much bigger and we have to look at what we can do to ensure all ASEAN countries benefit from the economic integration," he said. Lim added that ASEAN was not ready for a single currency as there was still a need to narrow the gap among all ASEAN countries. On Saturday, the EU ambassador and head of delegation to Malaysia, Luc Vandebon said the regional bloc does not expect ASEAN to replicate its economic integration model as a platform for the AEC. -- BERNAMA