ASEAN's process in its economic integration is proceeding generally well despite some problems and the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) could come into reality by 2015 as scheduled, an ASEAN official said in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) now can say that it has completed the process in tariff reductions, ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong said in an interview with Xinhua here.

"Yes, we can say that, because we are almost 99 percent done for tariff reduction," Ong said after the first-day meeting of the 38th ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) ended.

Some products still remain on the sensitive list, such as sugar, rice and automotive spare parts, he said, but ASEAN will make efforts to improve in that respect.

ASEAN now also can say that half of its integration in services area has been done, or it is on the half way towards the establishment of the AEC in that area, Ong said.

Yet he admitted that there are some hard issues in the services liberalization talks within ASEAN because some ministers are requiring others to open up more services.

For example, he said, some workers from one ASEAN country might have problems if they want to find a job in another.

"In service area, I think, we have covered 50 percent, but we have another 50 percent to go," he said.

However, the ASEAN secretary-general was dissatisfied with ASEAN's current liberalization process in the field of investment although the regional grouping has attracted increased amount of foreign direct investment over the past decade.

"We are now worried about the non-tariff barriers. We have to do something about non-tariff barriers. So we are sitting down to talk about the non-tariff barriers," he stressed after the meeting.

Ong said that less than 50 percent of work have been done in the integration process in investment area, even far lagging behind the services area, Ong stressed.

ASEAN economic ministers now are exploring ways to improve rules and regulations about investment in the region, he said.

Their first step is to publish some information about investment in the region on the website to make it more open and transparent to potential investors, Ong said.

The ministers also are considering making changes on the rules of the existing investment regimes to fully tap the advantage in the region, he added.

Despite a lot of problems in ASEAN's current process towards the establishment of the AEC, Ong said he was optimistic about the prospect for the realization of the grouping's economic integration by 2015 and 2020.

He said that ASEAN hopes that around 94 percent of the overall economic integration work could have been done, including that in the areas of investment and services, when ASEAN can announce the realization of the AEC by 2015.

At least 70 or 80 percent of the work could be completed by that deadline, he said.

ASEAN has concluded a wide range of agreements or protocols for that target, he said, and economic ministers attending this meeting also did not oppose such a deadline earlier than 2020.

He noted that as long as these documents could be implemented well, ASEAN could reach the AEC by the deadline.

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

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2006)