Brussels, 02/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström is travelling to Thailand, where she will take part in the annual meeting of economy ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN - Burma/Myanmar, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), which is being held in Chiang Mai on Thursday 3 March.
As part of the EU-ASEAN consultations, the ministers will discuss how to strengthen trade and investment between the two blocs, as well as how to cooperate on global economic and trade issues, and how to strengthen the partnership in multilateral arenas.
At the last ASEAN ministerial meeting in Kuala Lumpur in April 2015, the parties agreed to take initiatives by the end of 2015 so as to be able to relaunch the EU-ASEAN free trade talks.
Initially launched in 2007, these negotiations were broken off by the Asian side in 2009 due to disagreements about the EU's reservation over Burma/Myanmar's participation given the human rights situation in that country at the time.
Since then, the EU has committed to free trade negotiations with several countries from the ASEAN zone. It has concluded agreements with Singapore (end of 2012), and Vietnam (end of 2015), and similar negotiations are under way with Malaysia and Thailand (although these are currently on hold for political reasons).
After the reforms in Burma/Myanmar in 2001, the EU began talks with this country in 2014 for an investment protection agreement.
In Chiang Mai this week, Malmström will also meet members of the EU-ASEAN Business Council, which comprises representatives from the European chambers of commerce and from companies based in the region. Ministerial meetings on a bilateral level are also planned with representatives from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore.
The EU is the ASEAN's third biggest trade partner after China and the USA, with a bilateral volume of trade in goods and services nearing €235 billion in 2013. The EU is also the first source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the ASEAN bloc, with nearly €15 billion in FDI in the zone annually between 2006 and 2013. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)