EUMCCI
LOBBYING TRADE ISSUES
Regional Free
Trade Agreement between the EU and the ASEAN region strengthens the
need for an
Asia-wide sectoral review of the business environment. European
companies,
approaching the increasingly integrated
Asian
market, are facing a patchwork of business environments and regulatory
frameworks making it difficult for them to decide where to start and
how to
expand regionally according to a fact-based regional business strategy.
There
is a need to
compare the trade and
investment environment between countries in the region. A co-ordinated promotion of
European business
practices, standards and norms contributes to Europe’s
political and economical
presence in Asia.
To
address this need, the European Business Organizations (EBOs) in the
region,
spearheaded by EUMCCI, applied for a project to strengthen the capacity
of EBO
Malaysia and EBO Vietnam
by benchmarking
other EBOs’ experience in research of trade and regulatory
issues, the
organization of sectoral working groups, and the development,
publication and
promotion of annual “Trade Issues
and
Recommendations”. The European Chambers in Korea
and Taiwan
will be tutors
for Malaysia
and Vietnam
during
the whole duration of the project.
On
Monday 18th
February 2008 the kick- off meeting of the project ‘European
Business
Organizations
Capacity
Building
in Market information and Dissemination’, co-financed by the
European
Commission under Asia Invest program, took place at the Grand
Millennium Hotel in
Kuala
Lumpur. For
the occasion all the project partners, namely:
Eurocham Vietnam,
European Union Chamber of Commerce in South-Korea (EUCCK) and European
Chamber
of Commerce in Taipei (ECCT) as well as the EU-Korea Industrial
Cooperation
Agency (EUKICA), based in Europe, had come to Kuala Lumpur
for 3 days.
The
project has two
main purposes. First purpose is to build an e-platform with all market
information about trade issues for European Business in Asia. The
website www.eboasia.eu will be updated regularly on new
issues. We
would like to ask all our members to visit the Malaysia
site, which concludes a
short (5 minutes) questionnaire. With the results of this questionnaire
we will
be able to get a better overview of industry-issues in Malaysia.
Thank
you in advance for filling in the questionnaire.
The
second purpose is
to develop sector committees in Malaysia
and in Vietnam
in order to collect issues to be lobbied to the Government. The aim is
to have
a position paper for both Malaysia
and Vietnam
containing issues per sector to discuss with the local government.
In
the end, the
results of the project will benefit our members. To achieve that goal
it is
necessary intensely interact in order to find out which committees are
needed
and to address the issues properly. Therefore we will contact the
members of different
industry sectors by email asking for their cooperation and/or input.
Together
we will publish our own position paper “Trade issues and
Recommendations” with
the main issues the companies in Malaysia have to deal with.
Subsequently
we will deliver the position paper to the Malaysian Government for
further
discussion and hopefully solving most of the issues.
For
more enquiries about the project, please
contact:
Ms Wendy
van Dijck – Project Manager
Tel:
603-2162 6298 - Fax:
603-2162 6198
E-mail: wendy@eumcci.com,
www.eboasia.eu
Previous Coorporations:
EUMCCI has been selected by the European Commission to implement the
project: "Transfer and adaptation of EU perspectives,
methodologies and know-how to Malaysia in the field of
EcoTourism”.
The project is first of its kind in Asia under the EU-Asia cooperation
program, Asia ProEco, which is one of the initiatives by the European
Union designed to promote mutual benefit and understanding between the
Member States and Asia. The programme aims to improve environmental
performance and technology partnership in economic sectors, and promote
sustainable responsible investment.
The ultimate objective of the project is Sustainable
Tourism Development in Malaysia. To obtain this target
Europe and Malaysia will build partnerships in order to exchange best
practices, methodology and know how in
the field of EcoTourism and in the perspective of a
Sustainable Tourism Development.
The pilot sites are the States of Perak and Sabah. The partners of the
project from Malaysian side are WWF and Malaysian Nature Society. The
European partners - Regional Tourism Committee of Midi-Pyrenees and
Center for Training and Promotion of Tourism of Brens from France and
SOFIS from Spain have been chosen owing to their expertise in the
fields of methodology, training and planning of ecotourism.
WWF and Malaysian Nature Society will do the survey and data collection
in Malaysia. Together the partners will develop suitable tools for
implementation of EcoTourism in Malaysia during the workshops in Perak
and Sabah and the final 3-day conference which will be held in Perak in
September 2005. In addition to these workshops the Trans-national
Committee, composed of authorities and high-level officers from both
European and Malaysian side will have a workshop at the end of May 2005.
Duration of the project is altogether 16 months
and the budget of the project is EUR 699.000 (RM
3.200.000) of which the EU is financing 62%.
The rest of the project is financed by EUMCCI, States of Perak and
Sabah.
The project gets the support of the Malaysian Ministry of Tourism and
will be widely promoted in Malaysia, Southeast Asia and in Europe in
order to make Malaysia recognized as an Ecotourism Destination.
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