SAN FRANCISCO -- The economies of the six countries that form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have improved remarkably the past few years with some thanks to the United States, and they would like to keep it that way.
Washington-based representatives of ASEAN Thursday completed a mission to California in which they urged more investments in their nations -- Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines -- and a minimum of barriers.
'We would like to persuade the California Congressional delegation to take the lead in fighting protectionist legislation,' Ambassador Albert S. Talalla of Malaysia told a news conference.
'And We would like the California business community -- the Chamber of Commerce -- to spread the word to other parts of the United States that to put U.S. restrictions on U.S. markets for AESAN products would decrease our buying power.'
He said the United States market is still far more open than Japan and Western Europe but expressed misgivings about the future.
'Our concern is that you who had led the free enterprise system may be abdicating your role, and we have anxiety that a lot of other countries will back away also,' he said.
Dato Paduka Haji Mohamed Suni bin Haji Idris, ambassador of Brunei, one of the richest nations in the world the economy of which is based 80 percent on oil, urged U.S. investors to engage in joint ventures in his country so its economy becomes more diversified.
'Sooner or later, it (the oil) will dry up,' he said.
Abdul Rahman Ramly, ambassador of Indonesia, noted his nation is far more diversified.
'We welcome foreign and private investors in industries where skills are not yet available domestically,' he said. 'We have so many exports that free trade is very important to us.'
Representatives of the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand also cited figures of economnic growth linked in a large part to the United States.
The delegates did not list specific restrictions they feared, but Talalla gave an example of what he called 'protectionism at its worst.'
He referred to palm and coconut oil that he said American firms are trying to discredit as containing saturated fat. He said that although the importation of such oil to America is relatively small, efforts were being made to require its retail containers to be labeled 'saturated fat.'
He said Malaysia would welcome an investigation into the health aspects of the product.
