The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Tuesday asked Japan to extend the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) to all its member states to prevent the rise of "two classes of ASEAN members."

Currently, Japan already has bilateral EPAs with Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, the five more economically developed ASEAN countries.

For the remaining ASEAN member countries, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, Japan proposes to have a common agreement with them, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in a statement at the ninth ASEAN-Japan Summit held here Tuesday.

"This approach by Japan may give rise to two classes of ASEAN members, those with full bilateral EPAs with Japan, and those without," he said in the capacity of current ASEAN Chair.

"In this connection, ASEAN proposes that Japan extends to all ASEAN members the opportunity to engage in a bilateral EPA, while maintaining the option to engage Japan in a collective agreement. I hope Japan would consider this proposal favorably," he said.

Trade between ASEAN and Japan reached 135.7 billion US dollars in 2004, up 25.2 percent from 2003, according to ASEAN statistics.

ASEAN and Japan started the negotiations for the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (AJCEPA) in April 2005 with the objective to enhance further bilateral trade and investment linkage between the two sides. However, "the negotiations are not progressing satisfactorily and continue to face difficulties," Badawi said.

The prime minister requested ministers and officials to continue their discussions in a bid to narrow the differences so as to complete the negotiations by the end of 2006 as scheduled.

Source: Xinhua