Asia Trade Group Formed

[ausgeo@xxxxxxx]

06/06/1997

Asia Trade Group Formed 

By VIKAS BAJAJ 

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Hoping to capitalize on South Asia's booming 
population to become a economic powerhouse, four countries bordering the 
Indian Ocean formed a trade group Friday. 

Foreign ministry officials from India, Thailand, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka 
signed the trade pact. They said Burma, despite international criticism of its 
human rights record, would join the group within a year. 

Trade among the countries totals only $1 billion, but with a combined 
population of 1.3 billion people, optimism abounds that regional trade can 
expand quickly in the next decade. 

``The market potential is there,'' said Kobsak Chutikul, director of economic 
affairs at the Thai Foreign Ministry. ``This is the time to bring this 
subdivision together.'' 

Burma originally expressed interest in becoming a founding member of the trade 
group. Representatives of the pact's member countries said, without 
elaborating, that Burma was ``not ready'' for full membership but would be 
within a year. 

Bismillahir Rahim, a senior Bangladeshi official, told reporters that 
repression of Burma's democratic opposition by the ruling military would not 
bar its membership. 

Burma won approval last week to join the Association of Southeast Asian 
Nations in July. ASEAN rejected calls by many countries, including the United 
States, to deny Burma admission's to protest of its treatment of the 
pro-democracy movement led by 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. 

Officials hope the new trade group will link ASEAN, in which Thailand is a key 
member, and the South Asian Association of Regional Countries, which includes 
India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. 

The group -- to be known as the Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, 
Thailand-Economic Cooperation -- has already discussed forming a regional 
airline, owned by all four governments, to serve smaller destinations in each 
country. 

Other possible projects include boosting tourism to Buddhist religious sites 
in all four countries, said Saleem Shervani, an Indian government minister.