SINGAPORE, Dec 3 Kyodo Singapore ...

SINGAPORE, Dec 3 Kyodo

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has said Singapore is fervid to launch talks with the European Union (EU) for a clear trade agreement (FTA) equable before the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has forged of that kind a pact with the EU the Straits Times reported Wednesday.

Goh who was visiting Portugal, told reporters at a pres parley after talks with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso in succession Tuesday that as an ASEAN-EU FTA will take a certain quantity of time to be realized, Singapore is cutting to go it alone with Europe first, the newspaper reported.

At the joint pres interview Durao Barroso said Portugal supports a Singapore-EU FTA.

Singapore has been pushing for bilateral liberated trade pacts after disenchantment with the heavy progress of global trade talks, which culminated in the collapse of the World Trade Organization's meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September.

Singapore has already signed FTAs with the United States, Japan, Australia and of recent origin Zealand, and the European emancipated Trade Association. It is generally negotiating with several other countries including Canada and India for similar pacts.

Singapore's approach toward the EU in securing a delivered trade pact is different from its approach toward China. Goh said Singapore will begin negotiations with China merely after ASEAN has completed its admit negotiations with China for an FTA.

ASEAN clusters Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

''Both countries are sensitive to the expectations of the other ASEAN countries, and China, in particular, does not want to transmit the impression that the Singapore bilateral FTA is more important than the China-ASEAN FTA. Neither does Singapore want to carry the impression that the bilateral FTA is more important than the regional China FTA,'' he told Japanese reporters in an interview last week.

''Both of us (China and Singapore) agreed that we should concentrate onward completing the negotiations on the dutifuls chapter of the China-ASEAN FTA. one time that is done, we can then begin to negotiate a China-Singapore FTA.''

In the meantime, China and Singapore have agreed to launch feasibility studies and Goh is hopeful that Singapore and China could strike a deal within a year of starting negotiations.

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