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HUA HIN, Thailand: East Asian nations are to carry out a feasibility study for a huge free trade zone, officials said at a summit on Saturday, as the region tries to sustain its rebound from the global crunch.
Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), plus regional partners China, Japan and South Korea, would discuss details of the study at meetings in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin, they said.
A separate study for a wider economic partnership also covering India, Australia and New Zealand would also be carried out in tandem, the officials said.
"We're going to do this two-pronged, meaning in parallel," Vitavas Srivihok, director general for ASEAN affairs at the Thai foreign ministry, told AFP.
"Right now we (ASEAN) have bilateral free trade agreements with all six countries completely. Now we should explore a feasibility study both in the East Asia Free Trade Area and with (India, Australia and New Zealand)," he said.
Asia's quick rebound from the global recession, compared with the United States and other Western economies, has prompted calls for the region to increase integration.
Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has made a proposal for an East Asian community and said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday that it should aspire to lead the world.
"It would be meaningful for us to have the aspiration that East Asia is going to lead the world and with the various countries with different regimes cooperating with each other towards that perspective," Hatoyama, who took office last month, told the Bangkok Post newspaper.
"I am not saying that an East Asia Community is something that can be realised overnight," he said in the interview, conducted in Tokyo ahead of the talks.
While a common currency would have "significant meaning", he said it was important the countries first advance economic initiatives and co-operate on education, disaster management and climate change.
He described Japan's alliance with the United States as "the fundamental cornerstone" of its foreign policy, but said: "At the same time, Japan is an Asian country and we need to further strengthen our relationship and trust with Asia."
He said the region should work together to "try to reduce as much as possible the gaps, the disparities that exist amongst the Asian countries".
He stated China would "doubtless" grow further, particularly economically. "But I do not necessarily regard that as a threat," he added.
- AFP/so
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