LEAD: Koizumi agrees to pilot FTA talks with Vietnam, Brunei

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec. 12 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH INFO ON KOIZUMI'S MEETING WITH BRUNEI SULTAN)

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed Monday in separate meetings in Kuala Lumpur with Vietnamese and Brunei leaders to start preliminary talks for concluding bilateral free trade agreements with each country.

With Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, Koizumi agreed to launch formal negotiations for a bilateral FTA as quickly as possible after setting up a joint study group in January, Japanese officials said.

In his meeting later Monday with Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the two leaders agreed to start what they described as ''investigatory consultations'' to decide areas to be negotiated in their countries' subsequent FTA talks, they said.

Vietnam and Brunei will be the sixth and seventh members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with which Japan starts talks for a bilateral FTA, while Japan will be the first such partner for Vietnam.

Japan has already concluded a bilateral FTA with Singapore and will sign one with Malaysia on Tuesday. It has almost closed deals with Thailand and the Philippines and has begun talks with Indonesia as well as the 10-member ASEAN as a bloc.

Japan has held two bilateral meetings each with Vietnam and Brunei under the framework of the Japan-ASEAN FTA negotiations, launched in April with a target to wrap up by April 2007.

Japan and Vietnam will first sort out issues to be negotiated at the study group between their working-level representatives, with an eye to starting full-fledged FTA talks as early as the summer, the officials said.

''The start of negotiations is hoped to provide the momentum to strengthen our countries' economic relations,'' Koizumi was quoted as telling Khai in their talks in the Malaysian capital on the sidelines of the multilateral summits being held there.

Tokyo hopes an FTA with Vietnam will cover areas that are not included in its talks with ASEAN, such as intellectual property protection as well as Hanoi's tariffs on industrial goods, and anticipates that its farm and fisheries tariffs will also be addressed in the negotiations, the officials said.

Koizumi and Khai, meanwhile, agreed to continue their countries' joint initiative begun in April 2003 that has helped boost Japanese investment in Vietnam, the officials said. Japan and Vietnam have already concluded an investment pact.

At the outset of their meeting, the two leaders watched as their governments' senior officials signed a document concluding bilateral negotiations for Vietnam to join the World Trade Organization.

Khai thanked Koizumi for the large increase in Japan's official development assistance in the current fiscal year from a year before and told him the aid helps Vietnam build infrastructure for electricity, improve medical conditions and tackle poverty.

Koizumi invited Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong to come to Japan next year, according to the Japanese officials.

Koizumi and host Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, meanwhile, are slated to sign their countries' bilateral FTA -- Japan's third following ones with Singapore and Mexico -- after their talks in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

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