The president made the remark when he opened the ASEAN-EU Business Summit at the Jakarta Convention Center here on Thursday. He referred to the effort to increase people`s relations between the two regions.
The president said that about 7 million European people traveled to the ASEAN region annually so that it was now time for the peoples of both sides to increase their relations.
"This includes discussing a formal economic cooperation agreement between ASEAN and Europe," he said.
He cited as an example that Indonesia and the European Union had just finished an Indonesia-EU vision report on how to refresh the Indonesia-EU partnership.
The president said that ASEAN and EU needed to step up their cooperation to a higher level because the European Union constituted a strong partner for ASEAN to jointly carry out development for the welfare of the peoples of the two regions.
"There is no doubt that the relations between EU and ASEAN are important for both sides. EU is the second biggest trade partner for ASEAN while ASEAN is the fifth biggest trade partner of EU," he said.
Apart from that, ASEAN has a rapid economic growth. In 2003 when the ASEAN leaders agreed to established an ASEAN single community in 2015, its gross domestic product was still recorded at 700 billion US dollars, but now it has reached 2.9 trillion US dollars.
"If we include those of ASEAN partners which already have trade agreements with ASEAN, namely China, South Korea, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand, the GDP rate would reach 15 trillion US dollars, which is equal to that of the UE and the United States," President Yudhoyono said.
He said that ASEAN would learn a lesson from the European experience in developing community and economic integrity.
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Editor: Bambang
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