Senior economic officials of the ASEAN met here Wednesday and finalised several documents, including one on establishing and implementing a customs facilitating initiative, ahead of the Dec 12-14 summit.

The initiative, called the ASEAN Single Window (ASW), is the single most important customs initiative that will ensure expeditious clearance of goods and reduce the cost of doing business in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The ASW, whose draft model had been completed at the ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting last October in Vientiane, Laos, will facilitate speedy clearance of imports through electronic processing of trade documents at national and regional levels.

A pilot implementation of the initiative was targeted by the end of this year for Thailand and the Philippines, and full implementation by 2008, at the latest, for ASEAN-6 (Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Brunei) and by 2012 for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Malaysia will host the 11th ASEAN Summit and related summits. The Senior Official's Meeting Wednesday is to be followed by the ministerial meeting from Friday to Sunday.