BANGKOK, March 2 (AFP): Southeast Asian leaders have taken a firm stand against protectionism despite divisions in the region on how to tackle the global financial meltdown, a top official said today.
Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), holding their annual summit in Thailand on Sunday, issued a statement vowing to shun protectionist policies as the crisis hits the bloc's export-driven economies.
But there were apparent differences between some of the heads of government over the issue of buying local, with Malaysia's premier suggesting it was "normal" to do so during a recession.
"This is the first time in ASEAN's history that they have tried to adopt a common front on this particular subject," said the bloc's secretary general Surin Pitsuwan, referring to the leaders' statement.
"We must put up a united and brave front and that is what they did," he told a post-summit briefing in Bangkok.
The statement by the leaders of the 10-nation grouping also called for "bold and urgent reform" of the international financial system and said that they had agreed on coordinated action to fight the global downturn.
ASEAN has started to feel the effects of the crunch as demand for its exports plummets. Singapore is already in recession and Thailand's economy shrank in the last quarter of 2008.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who holds the bloc's rotating chairmanship, and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong urged against protectionism at the summit in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin.
But Malaysian premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi broke ranks, saying in an interview with a local newspaper that it was a "normal reaction" to urge people to buy local goods during times of crisis.
Some countries in the region have also started to lay off foreign workers.
Surin however said the statement showed that ASEAN had learned the lessons from the Great Depression in the 1930s when "governments adopted protectionist measures and the world suffered."
