Brussels, 19/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Phnom Pen, the final stage of the six day Asian tour that came to an end on Tuesday, was where Commissioner Pascal Lamy assured Cambodia of the Union's total support for its joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which could come about within the next year or two.
Mr Lamy indicated that Cambodia could count on the support of the Union, both politically and technically. He claimed that accession procedures were already on the right track and could occur within "a year or two" although it was difficult to specify an exact date in such a matter. Mr Lamy described the advantages of belonging to the WTO as having been manifold, with incentives and support for economic and structural reforms granted since the 1990s. On a bilateral level, Mr Lamy made a serious request for Cambodia to balance its export range, which was almost all shoes and clothes, and diversify as much as possible, with the help of the Union if necessary, in an effort to take full advantage of the advantageous access on offer to the European market, "except for arms". Last week in Singapore, Mr Lamy appealed for greater regional and multilateral integration that was "not mutually exclusive" but complementary, as opposed to much current attitudes on the matter. According to his counterpart, George Yeo, the comments he made on the free trade zone that Singapore wanted to set up with the Union were encouraging. Addressing a fifth anniversary of the European-Asia foundation, Mr Lamy had made a very powerful political and economic appeal in favour of the Project Mr Yeo had informed him of in a letter last January. Mr Yeo declared that they were currently examining and sounding out the European business community. He said that his kind of agreement had to pass three tests: compatibility with WTO rules, the potential for improvement and their multilateral ambitions which at Geneva, proved to be rather high and the question of sticking to the Development Agenda worked out at Doha calling the other 144 countries to deepen their integration on a global level.