In an interview with Beijing Review correspondent Dai Jinghua before the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cebu, the Philippines, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo shared her perspectives on Asian regional integration and burgeoning Sino-Philippine relations.

Beijing Review: As rotating chair of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, how does the Philippines lead and coordinate the ASEAN dialogues with China, Japan and South Korea? What are the opportunities and challenges facing ASEAN and China?

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo: As the host of the 12th ASEAN Summit and other summits with our Plus Three Dialogue Partners, I will be leading the discussions at the summit level. And in leading those discussions, I will consistently espouse the chairmanship of one caring and sharing community. So our discussions can cover all aspects of cooperation from political and security matters to economy, trade and investment, as well as social and cultural issues.

As the ASEAN chair, we are concurrently the coordinator for ASEAN Plus Three relations. We are also coordinating the drafting of the second Joint Statement on East Asia Cooperation to be adopted in Singapore in 2007, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the ASEAN Plus Three process. This document will set the tone for ASEAN Plus Three cooperation over the next 10 years. The ASEAN Plus Three process has grown and expanded so much-16 sectors and 49 mechanisms to date-that there is a need for rationalization and consolidation, especially now that it is running parallel to the East Asia Summit, which also has similar initiatives. It might be of interest to you to know that the first Joint Statement on East Asia Cooperation was adopted in Manila in 1999.

As for the opportunities and challenges facing ASEAN and China, I would say that China's heft-economically, politically and culturally-is the key factor. It is a statement of fact and can be seen both as an opportunity and a challenge: opportunity as we see in the Early Harvest Program of the ASEAN-China Agreement on Trade in Goods, and the potential benefits that would accrue from the signing of the ASEAN-China Agreement on Trade in Services in Cebu, and challenge in the sense that ASEAN would really have to succeed in its integration efforts in order to relate and work with China in a balanced way.

What are your expectations for the East Asia Summit? What role does the summit play? What do you think is the model for future East Asian cooperation?

As host of the Second East Asia Summit, the Philippines is exerting all efforts to ensure that the East Asia Summit continues to be a vehicle that will deepen the engagement of China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India with ASEAN. The idea behind the East Asia Summit is to take the ASEAN Plus Three process one step further, by providing the Plus Three countries and other countries with major interests in ASEAN. That would amount to more "ownership" in the dialogue process as equal partners instead of appendages to ASEAN.

During this meeting, I am proposing a very important initiative on East Asian energy security. Energy has already been previously identified as one of the areas for cooperation in the East Asia Summit mechanism. During this summit, the Philippines wants to initiate a more concrete statement on how East Asian countries will cooperate in terms of ensuring energy security for the region. Giving priority to energy security will also assist in technology transfer, another area of possible cooperation suggested by the East Asia Summit leaders.

We also plan to discuss and, time permitting, release a statement on pressing regional issues, particularly the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

The Philippines, as chair of the East Asia Summit, aims to strike a balance between maintaining ASEAN's centrality in the summit and ensuring a sense of ownership for the other participants that keeps them engaged in it. There is also the need to define in more concrete terms a strategic niche for the East Asia Summit as an integral part of the emerging regional architecture.

For the Chinese and Philippine leaders, what is the most important job to be done in order to further strengthen and promote mutual understanding between our two countries and two peoples?

I firmly believe that the relations between our two countries are founded, at the most fundamental level, on people-to-people exchanges.

That is why the Philippines and China remain committed to maintaining exchanges, ranging from all levels of the government leadership of both countries to specific sectors of society.

The Philippines and China enjoy very active and frequent exchanges of visits by government leaders. In 2004, I paid a state visit to China, which was reciprocated in 2005 by President Hu Jintao. And then I had my working visit to China in October 2006. After the ASEAN Summit and other summit meetings in Cebu, Premier Wen Jiabao will have his first official visit to the Philippines.

The Philippines and China also regularly draw up a three-year executive program to implement the Philippines-China cultural agreement, which is actually one of the earliest bilateral agreements between the Philippines and China. Under this executive program, both sides exchange artists, educators, researchers and students. Books, publications and films are also regularly exchanged.

Having these types of active exchanges at various levels results in better rapport among Filipinos and Chinese, which then augurs well for the development of relations and cooperative activities between the two countries in much broader fields of engagement.

During your presidency, what areas of China-Philippines cooperation will you promote and deepen?

I am glad that it is under my presidency that the Philippines and China are experiencing their so-called golden age of partnership. There are exciting priority areas in both our countries that the Philippines and China are working hard together to expand and deepen. These areas are trade and the economy, investment, mining, infrastructure, transportation and tourism.

One of the focal points of this golden partnership is a deepening engagement in trade and the economy. I am elated that the Philippines and China are now at the stage of finalizing an agreement drawing up a framework for a partnership to further expand and deepen bilateral trade and economic development between our two countries.

The Philippines and China have also set a goal of achieving a total trade volume of $30 billion by the year 2010. To this end, both the Philippines and China are committed to expanding the mutual trade volume. I also wish to further diversify the kinds of products that the Philippines exports to China to include more than just electronics. The Philippines should be able to export to China more fresh fruits, mineral ores, and other agricultural products like preserved food and fruit derivatives.

Another area I wish to further promote is Chinese investment in the Philippines. As it is, advances in mutual trade are not paralleled by commensurate progress in Chinese investments in the Philippines. There is also a large imbalance in mutual investments. While Philippine investments in China amounted to $542.69 million in 2005, Chinese investments in the Philippines amounted only to $3.8 million.

We therefore hope that more Chinese enterprises will invest in the Philippines. We would particularly appreciate the assistance of the Chinese Government in promoting among Chinese enterprises investment opportunities in the country, particularly in the areas of mining, infrastructure development, agriculture and fisheries, as well as housing, and especially on the island of Mindanao, whose potential has not yet been fully exploited.

A big flagship project in infrastructure and mass transport that the Philippines is implementing with the help of a loan from China is the Northrail and also the Southrail. Collectively these two are considered to be the biggest infrastructure project funded by the Chinese outside the mainland. My administration is committed to seeing these projects to completion.

Finally, in the area of tourism, I always say that I wish more tourists from the mainland would come to see the beautiful islands in the Philippines. Tour operators and travel agencies from the Philippines and China could further cooperate and coordinate with each other in facilitating the arrangement of tour packages to each other's country. This arrangement may be a starting point for future expansion to cover the promotion of tourism to the Philippines.

(Reporting from Manila)