The ASEM political leadership and the business community from the two regions appeared to have forged a new relationship at the Hanoi summit October 8-9 and agreed to consult more closely in the future in a way to make that bond "substantially interactive," in the words of the government leaders.

More than 300 leaders and representatives of 158 businesses from Europe and 152 from Asia gathered for the 9th such Asia-Europe Business Forum (AEBF) called on governments to help stimulate the mobilisation of business, financing and a host of specific sectorial activities in their regions and across the Euro-Asian continent. There were large delegations present from France and Germany, many of whom were also accompaying President Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on wider visits in Asia.

Hosted and chaired by the Director General of the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency, Ngo Van Thoan, the meeting was devoted to working "Toward a Closer and More Dynamic Asia-Europe Business Partnership." It will be chaired by Finland for the ASEM summit planned for Helsinki in 2006.

The business community, matching political summit decisions, also mapped out plans to create a more structured form of cooperation and follow-through of its ASEM work, including the possible creation of a small secretariat.

The backbone of the two-day business strategy and meetings revolved around preparations, discussion and formulation of specific recommendations in seven specific sectors:t rade, investment and infrastructure, financial services, information and communications technologies, food, tourism and small and medium enterprises. These recommendations were presented verbally to the official ASEM political summit at the close of its first full day October 8 and also informally during a cocktail period, according to one of the AEBF leaders.

Dr. Gert Vogt, the chair of German industry's ASEM Initiative, and others also remarked to the press that the follow up of the recommendation by ASEM Economics or other Ministers and their expert officials would also have to be assured by AEBF members and that specific reactions and comments would also be sought to monitor acceptance or implementation. Erik Forsman, director of international relations for the Federation of Finnish Industries, who will chair the AEBF 10 in 2006, also acknowledged past "deficiencies" in AEBF functioning, communications and follow-through, but added numerous steps had been taken to "streamline" the group. They pointed to the decision to create a small core group to act as an AEBF business advisory council to ASEM and to stage full AEBF meetings every two years to coincide with the summit rather than the previous annual meetings. This group will prepare detailed proposals for a new and more efficient structure for AEBF and financing for a permanent AEBF secretariat.

In his speech earlier Vogt had said that aim of such efforts was "develop ASEM from dialogue to collaboration..."

The appeals in Hanoi were not only heard courteously by the official summit, but figured prominently in the summit declaration issued late October 9 on closer Asia-Europe economic partnership. In that far-reaching declaration, ASEM leaders said they recognised the role of AEBF as a "driving force" and "important bridge." And it "emphasised the need to improve business involvement in ASEM process and make to more responsive, relevant and substantially interactive with the business community." And, to assure follow-up application of this new bond at a lower operational level, the ASEM summit leaders also called on their Economic and Finance Ministers and the next AEBF chair "further to imrpove ways of interaction between business and governments." They also "encouraged the deeper involvement" of national and regional business organisations, such as chambres of commerce, employers federations and eminent business people in the ASEM economic pillar.

The AEBF recommendations themselves, which the official ASEM summit leaders did not directly react to or comment on, but some of which were indirectly reflected in the general declaration on closer economic, evolved out of the work of AEBF Task Forces and the plenary meeting.

This was particularly the case concerning aspects of trade policy and facilitation and in the investment financing contents of the summit's economic declaration and the AEB working groups and chair reports. The two did not, of course, completely coincide since the ASEM declaration was more focused on the traditional and unofficial internal official discussions on those two subjects, which have also been generally felt to have made little progress, rather than the AEBF's more detailed reflections and recommendations. Again the summit asked Economics and Finance Ministers to "identify and pursue new initiatives on trade and investment opportunities" and to explore synergies with other activities and processes such as the ASEAN discussions with numerous other partners. The declaration also had a fairly extensive reference to world trade and negotiations, including the growing spread of free trade or other such agreements and their compatibility with the world trade order.

The AEBF recommendations, themselves refined and abbreviated from the working group's broader proposals, included appeals for continued government reductions in tariffs and avoiding counter-vailing duties, access to trade dispute settlement procedures for business and simplification of visa and travel permits. The working group had also other proposals that included objectives in reducing trade transaction costs, provision of trade-related development aid or "sharing and developing of best manufacturing in exporting industries, to the ASEM developing partners."

The match-up between the official declaration on finance and the AEBF and working group proposals also displayed similar variance. The official statement was a resounding call for "a sound, sustainable and resilient financial architecture in order to cope with potential financial shocks, and to support broad-based and sustainable growth in Asia and Europe in the future." It called for cooperation, information sharing and dialogue in numerous areas ranging from monetary and fiscal policies, financial market development and surveillance, debt management, structural reform, money-laundering and the financing of terrorism, and the challenges of ageing populations and poverty. They ten called on their Finance Ministers to further explore the recommendations "and other ways to strengthen this partnership within their responsibilities." The final five AEBF recommendations had focused development of capital markets especially bond markets, encouragement of pension funds, transparency between financial service providers and the corporate sector, formalisation of overseas private remittances and promote the use of the euro currency for trade between the regions. The working group on financial services had also been more detailed and innovative in capital market development, corporate governance and money laundering, remittances, banking sector stability and the role of private pension funds in Asian economies. The working group of investment and infrastructure had also been thought-provoking in related areas. It had been particularly far-reaching in its arguments concering the possible roles of private pension plans in public-private partnerships, as opposed to privatisation, to provide socially-responsible and sustaintable financing for infrastructure and other public sector needs even for very-low income populations.

The official declaration's passing references to such issues as tourism, e-commerce and small-and-medium enterprise may have also been at least in part inspired by the business community input. Concerning information and communications technology (ICT) the AEBF chair statement generally also supported e-commerce, experience-sharing and recommending that e-services should be kept moderate to make digital services available to all. An additional sector emphasised by the AEBF ICT working group was to stress intellectual property rights protection while also assuring security and and prevention of technology outflows. It suggested regular annual consultation by all public and private stakeholders and research by state-funded institutes into such issues and application of ICT. Regarding tourism, the AEBF recommended sharing of views on a number of related issues such as health, security, safety, crisis management and advocated cutting red tape on visas and an annual tourism forum. On the subject of SMEs, the AEBF had selected a number of recommendations in the direction of promotion, consultation and development of existing support tools and especially access financing mechanisms. The working group on the issue had strongly underlined the key, and even leading, role played by SMEs in most economies, particularly the most advanced Asian ones, and noted World Bank surveys of the costs associated to business regulations and called for a pact between governments to create a business-friendly environment in exchange for socially responsible practices by business. It called for attention to the creation of linkages between SMEs and other sectors of the economy, especially the rural sector, as has been the case in the more dynamic Asian economies, with the result being to increase the quality of life throughout those countries. It noted for example that in ASEAN, SMEs represented for 90% of all manufacturing firms, were an important source of employment especially for women. In the EU the report underlined that SMEs accounted for 66% of employment, or some 65 million jobs, and 52% of private sector turnover. It urged government attention to policies to assist in improving the competitiveness, skills and linkages of SMEs, and noted particularly programmes developed by Thailand in this area.

Another field of AEBF focus and recommendations related to food, and especially food safety and biotechnology. It recommended a "rapid alert system" between the two continents to monitor and notify of an outbreak of infectuous animal disease or food safety incident in any country. On biotechnology, it noted that some Asian countries are increasingly applying biotechnology and that the EU share its experience regarding the management and development of this industry to assure human health, biodiversity and the environment.