It's hardly surprising the EU is pushing for greater access to South-east Asia's rapidly recovering economies.
If the ASEAN grouping of nations, comprising Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Brunei, were grouped as a single economic entity it would rank as the world's 10th largest economy and the third biggest market in terms of population.
Already the EU has a trade deal with South Korea, it announced last week it was starting negotiations with Singapore and Vietnam. Drawn-out discussions with India are expected to be finalised by October.
ADAMS: I think the EU regards the Korea agreement as being successful the Indian agreement as a long drawn out process that will conclude and the Singapore agreement as sort of the test case to get a substantive agreement as a template that then could be applied to other members of ASEAN.
ALLE: Professor Charles Adams is from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He's also a former Assistant Regional Director of the IMF based in Tokyo.
He says the EU's push for closer trade ties with South-east Asia has in part been prompted by the failure of the Doha round of world trade negotiations which have ground to halt over differences between the Europeans and the Americans over agricultural subsidies.
ADAMS: Singapore as you know in terms of traditional trade measures is largely free. Obviously agriculture is not an issue for Singapore. So if you like, Singapore is going to give the EU the opportunity to go some of these deeper behind the border measures.
ALLE: But are there bigger stumbling blocks in relation to India where child labour and environmental issues still have to be agreed upon.
Meanwhile New Delhi is forging ahead with its own free trade agreement with ASEAN which will result in the elimination of tariffs on more than 4,000 goods over the next few years, as well as freeing-up the provision of services and encouraging investment flows.
China's FTA with ASEAN, which came into force at the beginning of this year, isn't universally regarded as positive.
Some manufacturers are worried they cheap Chinese imports will flood their markets.
Professor Charles Adams.
ADAMS: In the short run any effort any attempt to lower trade barriers is going to lead to adjustment costs for some groups for some sectors. In the case of Indonesia we're clearly seeing in areas like textiles and some food items that there are some pressures. Typically for that reason, most of these agreements include safeguards. And I think what we're seeing in the context of the ASEAN-China agreement is that some of these pressure perhaps has been a little stronger in some sectors
ALLE: Indonesia's textile and steel industries are reported to be so worried about the prospect of dismantling tariffs, they've asked the government for a delay on some provisions.
On the other hand access to China's one-point-three billion consumers could bring significant benefits.
The US too is moving to secure access to Asia's markets with talks starting in Melbourne next week on a proposed Trans-pacific partnership linking the American market with Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei, Chile, Peru and Australia. But the Obama administration will have to resist protectionist lobbying if unemployment remains stubbornly high.
If there are scenarios if US unemployment stays up at a high level for an extended period protectionist pressure will strengthen.
If at the same time the Chinese don't move on their currency policy that will aadd fuel to the fire for protectionists so there are a number of risks out there so personally i htink it would be critical for Obama's team to come early behind numder one the Doha round and to send signals to its trading partners to the approaches its going to take.
