Malaysia defended its positive discrimination policies at trade talks here Wednesday and said that some non-tariff barriers were essential for political stability in Southeast Asia.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) economic ministers have agreed to work towards a single market by 2015, and the bloc is now tackling the removal of non-tariff barriers, some of which are politically sensitive.

Malaysia has a long-held policy of affirmative action for its majority ethnic Malays, who lag economically behind its Chinese community, although the policies have been criticised for hindering foreign business and trade interests.

However, Malaysia's Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz said governments still had to prioritise national interests despite moves to abolish non-tariff barriers.

"Each country, if it's a good government, will also listen to domestic concerns. No government in this world is a free trader that ignores its own constituents back home," she told reporters.

"For Malaysia, we have to be responsible for Malaysians first, and policies that we institute and implement must make sure it leads to social stability, economic stability," she said.

Rafidah said investors were fully aware of Malaysia's policies favouring Malays and had chosen to come here regardless.

"If they are prepared to come, they come. If they are not prepared, they don't have to come. We are not begging for people to come," she said.

Timeline

The minister also argued that regional stability was dependent on the political stability of individual countries.

"You cannot integrate into a region when your own domestic constituencies are not happy with your governance," she said.

"If constituent members of Asean are not stable, Asean itself will be destabilised."

Malaysia's trade ministry said today that Asean had established a timeline to eliminate non-tariff barriers.

The process will take place over three deadlines in 2008, 2009 and 2010 for Asean's more developed economies of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia.

Less-developed Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Vietnam will aim for 2010, 2011 and 2012, it said.

"These NTBs include non-automatic licensing requirements, quantitative restrictions, technical and control measures and inspection systems which are deemed to be trade restrictive," it said in a statement.