The Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations today called for the development of the private sector in all countries in Southeast Asia.

Speaking at a conference of the ASEAN Business Forum in Singapore, the Secretary-General, Rodolfo Severino, pointed out that the private sector has to play the "primary role" in a "world of globalization and regionalization."

Specifically, he said that private business had to be strengthened in the newer ASEAN members, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

"It has become clear," Severino declared, "that, generally speaking, state enterprises, or enterprises unduly reliant on direct political patronage, cannot hope to be competitive in the region or in the world. Economies that are driven primarily by such enterprises cannot hope to catch up with the rest of the region, let alone with the rest of the world."

Building up private business in the newer members, he said, is necessary for the regional business networking that is required by the growing integration of Southeast Asia's economy. "If the huge market that is ASEAN Ten is to be exploited to full advantage," he stressed, "the horizons of ASEAN business must expand to embrace the newer ASEAN members as well as the old."

Severino urged ASEAN enterprises to have "a regional outlook," with their marketing programs encompassing "the whole region and not just a narrow protected market." For greater Southeast Asian competitiveness, he called for more professional management, improved physical and institutional infrastructure, and more efficient, transparent and honest government decision-making and public services.

The Secretary-General recalled that the primary response of ASEAN to the economic setbacks that its members had recently suffered was to push forward the integration of the regional economy.

He observed that, pursuant to the ASEAN leaders' decision in December last year, the ASEAN Free Trade Area would be officially completed by the beginning of 2002 for the first six signatories to the AFTA treaty but substantially fulfilled as early as the beginning of 2000.

He said that barriers to investment among ASEAN countries were Being brought down, and negotiations on the liberalization of trade in Services were being started.

Pointing out that technology had made artificial barriers to trade and capital flows less and less effective, Severino stated that economies have to "coordinate, cooperate and integrate as regions" if they are to survive in a "competitive world."

The Secretary-General said that ASEAN had set up an "economic surveillance process" to examine and analyze economic data for the region in order to alert ASEAN members to any impending problems that might lead to future crises and encourage one another to persist in their internal reforms.

These internal reforms, he stated, were "in the direction of wider openness, increased competition, greater transparency, higher professionalism in management, a greater degree of objectivity in financial and business decisions, the primacy of law and rules, and reduced possibilities for undue intervention by the state."

Severino stressed that such reforms, if serious and lasting, as well as regional integration, would place Southeast Asia's economic recovery on "sounder foundations."

"The old ways of doing business may no longer work as well as before," he said. "New ones may work better."