By Thomas Fuller International Herald Tribune

Published: August 22, 2006

HONG KONG The dream of a European-style unified market in Southeast Asia came a small step closer to reality Tuesday when the trade ministers of countries from Indonesia to Vietnam to the Philippines agreed in principle to accelerate a timetable toward free trade and to meet the challenge of the surging Chinese and Indian economies.

Buoyed by a report showing that Southeast Asia received record levels of foreign investment last year - more than China when calculated on a per- capita basis - trade ministers meeting in Kuala Lumpur said they would advise their governments to move up the plans for a free trade zone from 2020.

"We all agreed to recommend to the leaders that we would accelerate to 2015," Indonesia's trade minister, Mari Elka Pangestu, told reporters. "The issue is how to get there, so now we have to discuss a more in-depth kind of a blueprint."

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Posted by pichu at August 22, 2006 5:14 PM