Asean Joins Japan, Korea Call for Stable Oil Prices Which Hace Climbed 50% This Year

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10/07 08:35

Asean Joins Japan, Korea Call for Stable Oil Prices Which Hace Climbed 50% This Year By Yoolim Lee

Chiang Mai, Thailand, Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Japan, China and South Korea joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to pledge they'll work for stability in crude oil prices, which have climbed almost 50 percent this year.

Trade ministers attending a meeting of the association, ``called for an appropriate increase in supplies and other necessary measures to promote long-term price stability in the mutual interests of consumers and producers,'' a statement said.

Prices for crude oil, used in everything from gasoline to asphalt to plastic garbage bags, tripled from December 1998 to the current level of more than $30 a barrel. They climbed to a 10-year high of $37.80 in New York last month.

For Korea and Japan, which import all their oil, the stakes are high. Oil prices at $35 per barrel would reduce Korea's economic growth by 2 percent, according to Korean trade minister Han Duck Soo.

Japan's minister of international trade and industry, Takeo Hiranuma, said oil prices should drop to between $22 and $25 to benefit both consumers and exporters.

The 10-member Asean group includes oil exporters such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

``What's important is the `stable' level, not so much the `good' price level -- that both producers and consumers can benefit from,'' said Rafidah Aziz, Malaysian minister of international trade and industry.

The nations ``agreed to send across a signal that unstable supplies of resources are bad for producers as well as consumers,'' Korea's Han said.

Cooperation

The ministers today also set their priority areas of cooperation between the two regions as trade, investment and technology.

They said project proposals should involve any two Asean countries and any two countries from China, Japan and Korea.

Ministers from Asean and the three Northeast Asian countries, holding their second meeting, also agreed to gather again on a regular basis.

The ministers will report the progress of the implementation of the proposals under the new criteria in the next meeting, which will be held in Siem Reap, Cambodia, in May.

The Asean members are Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Trade between Asean and the three Northeast Asian countries totaled $13.3 billion in 1999.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Top%20Financial%20News&s1=blk&tp=ad_topright_topfin&T=markets_bfgcgi_content99.ht&s2=blk&bt=ad_position1_topfin&middle=ad_frame2_topfin&s=AOd8YhRSgQXNlYW4g

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), October 07, 2000

Answers

Gathering Ministers calling for an increase in supplies! Now that gives me a warm, comforting feeling that everything is going to turn out all right.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), October 07, 2000.

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