THE Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has a much-better chance of becoming an economic community six years down the road compared with Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) members with their disparate geographical locations.

Former President Fidel V. Ramos made this forecast on Sunday after arriving from a business meeting in Guangdong, China.

Ramos, during a brief press conference, was informed of an ongoing debate among Apec member-economies on who should be the “driving force” behind it, with Australia suggesting that the United States be the one to lead Apec.

“What [has ambitions] to have an economic community by 2015 is Asean, that’s 10 countries; but Apec is difficult because it has 21 members and includes such distant places as Australia and New Zealand,” said Ramos.

Asean members are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

On the other hand, Apec is composed of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

Apec just for free trade

According to Ramos, Apec at the moment is not interested in integration but in free trade, “which means equity even in the migration of unskilled and skilled laborers.”

He cited as an example the difficulty of a Filipino skilled laborer, whose country belongs to Apec, to be readily employed in the United States, Canada or Mexico.

“But in Asean, we are under a no-visa zone. You can freely move around the Asean member-nations without a visa. In Europe they are doing that among 12 out of European Union [EU] members, the so-called Shengen countries.”

He cited as another classification of economic integration the setup in the EU, where a common customs union allows one to travel from Eastern, Central and Western Europe by car.

“That’s the difficult part about Apec,” he said, hinting of the separate geographical locations of its members.

How about ‘Anean’?

ON the other hand, Ramos recalled having noted before that there is no Association of Northeast Asia, “which you might call Anean, which, compared to Asean, has been there for 41 years.”

He identified the proposed Anean grouping as comprising China, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and Russia.

“Believe it or not Russia is there. However, there exists no intergovernmental branch that deals with the environment because there is no formal network that had been agreed upon except the private sector, such as their chambers of commerce which usually deals in education, tourism and others.”

Ramos said there should be an agreement to finally get the Northeast Asian countries together into a formal governmental network,  and the others can come later—just like Asean, where there are some applicants like Timor Leste and some other new countries around.

Growth polygon, too

Ramos suggested creating a doable growth polygon, which he calls the central East Asia growth polygon.

Dismissing the notion of a “driving force” or any Apec member-economy leading the group, Ramos said it is better to concentrate on doable partners such as the Southeast Asian Group 4 whose members include the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, and the Guangdong-Fujian provinces of China.

“Guangdong province where we came from, is the biggest in all of China with a gross domestic product bigger than the whole of the Philippines,” Ramos noted.

He said the next group could be composed of Taiwan, Okinawa, Guam and the Marianas, “all of which are within two flying hours’ of each other.”

Although these countries do not have a formal organization, they engage actively in trade and commerce.

Ramos suggested that these countries try to officially organize themselves, as what the Philippines did with the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines-East Asia Growth Area.

He said this grouping contributed to the peace process that led to the interfaith exchange, and also contributed to cultural exchange and cooperation despite there being no driving force behind it.

“We just conceived of the idea, throw it to the leaders so that they can make decisions and let everyone be a driving force.”

The former Chief Executive said that he wished for a speedy organization of Anean.

“Can you imagine if we can really integrate East Asia, North, South and Central Asia, compared with the EU, or North American Free Trade Area. I think the one in Asia will be so powerful.”

He added that in the case of the Asean, “in spite of our political differences in 1967, when Indonesia was at war with Malaysia and Singapore, and when the Philippines was focusing on its Sabah claim toward Malaysia, we got together and put aside all of those political differences and agreed that we better put our economy together and get people to understand each other’s culture so that we will reduce—hopefully, avoid and totally eliminate—a shooting war among all of us. And that’s what happened.”

In this scenario, Ramos said it would be a terrific idea if the Anean could eventually integrate North Korea.