Co-Chairman,
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of my ASEAN colleagues, let me welcome you all once again to Brunei Darussalam.

It is my great pleasure to co-chair this Meeting with you in our capacity’s Country Coordinator for the ASEAN-Australia Dialogue. Since we took over this role from Thailand last July, I m pleased that our officials have established a good working relationship and that our dialogue activities are progressing well.

I hope we will be able to have a frank exchange of views on international and regional issues and more specifically on the developments of our dialogue relation.

On the exchange of views on international and regional issues, although this item has been covered fairly extensively at our ARF and PMC 7,7 Meeting, perhaps I could update you briefly on how we see the region at present. Despite some current issues in the region which are facing us, I think we are as a whole enjoying a generally peaceful and stable environment and good economic growth. We feel that there are some important developments which are producing a new economic and political configuration in the region. In particular we are seeing the prospect of the rest of the Southeast Asian countries joining ASEAN.

I am also happy to say that our neighboring countries including those in the Asia Pacific, are deeply involved in economic reforms. They are increasingly linked to ASEAN through closer cooperation, in both economic and political fields.

Also, various regional forums such as APEC and ARF are important in developing closer consultations among us. This has helped us to create a more predictable pattern of relations among countries in the region. Our assessment of the future and how it should be faced supports some of the views Your excellency has expressed in a number of your writings. Despite possible difficulties in areas such as the South China Sea, I feel we can develop the level of our economic cooperation and ensure continued economic growth in our region.

In other areas, the recently convened International Forum on the Indian Ocean Region (IFIOR) has attracted much interest in promoting cooperation in that part of the region. We think that this is a significant development which will contribute to peace and stability in the Indian Ocean.

Looking at APEC, I would like to say briefly that we all look forward to the coming Summit in Osaka where we hope that more achievements will be made to build on what we have agreed on in Bogor. Again on this issue perhaps Co-Chairman you might have more to say in terms of how you see APEC is developing.

Regarding our dialogue relations, on the hole I feel that things are going very well between us. On trade between ASEAN and Australia, I am most impressed that there has been a significant increase in the volume of trade between us. From 1 990 to 1994, two-way trade between ASEAN and Australia has grown by about 49% with the 1994 figure amounting to 4.1 billion Australian Dollars. I feel that there is still plenty of room for us to co-operate especially in the area of access into the Australian market for ASEAN's goods. On investment, ASEAN still maintains its position that Australian businessmen should invest more in this region.

I say this because ASEAN has taken a decision to quicken the pace of realising the ASEAN Free Trade Area(AFTA)from the year 2007 to 2003. Furthermore, ASEAN intends to broaden its cooperation in AFTA to include services and intellectual property. We believe that this will enhance our competitiveness. I hope the Australian business sector will take advantage of the abundant trade and investment opportunities created by AFTA especially through joint ventures particularly with small and medium industries.

We also welcome the proposed links between AFTA and the ASEAN-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations and Trading Arrangement (CER).I understand that our Economic Ministers are looking into this and that they will be meeting their Australian and New Zealand counterparts here in September to see what can be done to enhance economic cooperation between both sides. All in all, we think this kind of development has great potential and e are keen to see progress. It should be a great help for our business people.

Looking now at the ASEAN-Australia Economic Cooperation Programme (AAECP), this is in my view the very core of our dialogue relations. It has done much to develop and broaden relations between us and has built up strong ASEAN-Australia contacts between institutions and individual people.

We wish to thank the Australian Government again for its generous contribution to the various projects under the AAECP.

Under the projects stream of the current phase of the programme, a number of big projects in the agreed sectors such as environment, energy, biotechnology, telecommunications, microelectronics and agriculture will form the considerable part of the activities for the next 3 years. These projects are great value to us in our efforts to develop our industries and expand our economies. We hope also that your people will also stand to gain from the programme.

We are also hopeful that the linkages stream under this programme will build up the necessary networking needed to further expand our trade and investment activities especially between our private sectors.

Throughout the year, there have been meetings and discussions at several levels between our officials and also with your consultants in working towards the smooth implementation of the various projects. A sub- committee meeting was also convened here in Brunei Darussalam last November which allowed our officials to review the status of projects and recommend some workplans for improvements to the overall running of the programme.

As far as the other areas of cooperation go, we think culture and information are possible areas where we can do more. I know our officials are already working on this and we see real potential here. I would like to see this develop as it can help our people get to know each other better and that is an essential feature of any long-term partnership and cooperation.

Thank you.