ASEAN free trade talks could start by year end -EU

KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 (Reuters) The European Union could begin negotiations on a free trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by the end of this year, its trade chief said today.

Peter Mandelson, EU Trade Commissioner said the European Union will study a recently completed report on trade between the two regions and decide on whether to move ahead with a free trade pact.

''I hope then that we will receive a green light. I anticipate that we will (and) to start putting in place the modalities for our negotiations at the turn of the year, for negotiations proper to get underway after that,'' he told reporters in Malaysia.

Differences in the economic development within ASEAN, which includes Brunei, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia, would mean that the negotiations would be complex, he said.

But the case for an FTA between the two regions was a ''strong one,'' he added.

''I can't give you a deadline or time limit but I think that the political will exists.'' Mandelson met ASEAN trade ministers in Manila earlier this week where he said that the EU could reach a free trade pact with ASEAN that would exclude Myanmar.

Myanmar's secretive military junta has been shunned internationally for suppressing democracy and oppressing its ethnic Karen minority.

''It's not for us or anyone else in Europe to say that 'x' country or 'y' country is a more or less fitting member of ASEAN but equally everyone knows that there is a particular problem with Myanmar,'' Mandelson said.

REUTERS