KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 7: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged ASEAN nations on Wednesday to stay united against foreign “hijacking” of their industries and markets through globalization.

Mahathir said globalisation at present was only about free capital flows in and out of countries, about market opening and abolition of discrimination in favour of national companies.

This would create super big foreign giants which would take over local financial and industrial sectors of small countries and force governments to bow to their wishes, he said.

We survive by staying together, by defending our market and by extracting the best terms from our dealings with the developed countries. Alone we will fall but together we stand a chance, he told a luncheon hosted by the ASEAN Council on Petroleum.

ASEAN has a market of half a billion people... with this market we can leverage a trade-off so that access would be on our terms, on terms that will give us some substantial advantage.

Mahathir, long a critic of western economic domination, reiterated his call for a “staggered” globalization process and for “handicap” to be given to poor and developing countries.

He urged the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to protect their puny businesses from emerging foreign giants.

Little one-branch banks, mama and papa provision shops and restaurants, even back-yard industries have contributed towards our economic growth, he said.

We should have our big, efficient businesses of course but we must ensure that the small ones survive too.

The premier said the globalised world should not be uniform because variety is the spice of life.

The spice is fast disappearing as we stay in Hilton Hotels, eat McDonald’s hamburgers, drive in a Ford car, bank with Citibank and buy our household needs from Carrefour, he said.

The Italians monopolise the brand names so much so that Asians have to invent Italian-sounding names for their products.

He urged ASEAN, which will set up a regional free trade area by January 2003, to build up its industries based on the larger regional market rather than on national markets.

We have to agree on a distribution of industries by siting certain industries in specific countries so that competition would be minimal through not to the extent of a monopoly.

To be competitive, he said the ASEAN electrical and gas grid must be implemented as quickly as possible, railway and road networks linked and travel in the region made easier by using a common smart card. —AFP