ASEAN in figures 2003 is the first publication of a comprehensive set of key development indicators for ASEAN. It is intended to provide benchmarks and measure progress of various development goals, and covers 63 important socio-economic indicators in the areas of health, education, labour and unemployment, macro economics and poverty, environment and sustainable development, access to technology, and population.
On 28 July 2008, the ASEAN Studies Centre and the Regional Economic Studies Programme, both of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung organized a roundtable on The ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint. The brainstorming session gathered Southeast Asian experts from the region to discuss the AEC Blueprint, which ASEANs leaders had adopted at their summit meeting in November 2007, and the prospects of any obstacles to its implementation by the target year, 2015. The roundtable started with a progress report on the AEC Blueprint given by S. Pushpanathan, Principal Director of Economic Integration and Finance, ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta. Thereafter, the sessions examined the various aspects of the Blueprint tackling the non-tariff barriers, designing a comprehensive ASEAN Investment Agreement, a regional framework for competition policy, the role of infrastructure development in economic integration, the importance of international production networks in economic integration, etc.
The formation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967 was originally driven by political and security concerns. In the decades that followed, ASEAN's scope evolved to include an ambitious and progressive economic agenda. In December 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was formally launched. Although AEC has enjoyed some notable successes, the vision of economic integration is yet to be fully realized. This publication reviews the evolution of ASEAN economic integration and assesses the major achievements. It also examines the challenges that emerged during the past decade and provides recommendations on how to overcome them.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is strategically significant because of its size, dynamism, and role in the Asian economic and security architectures. This paper examines how ASEAN seeks to strengthen these assets through "centrality" in intraregional and external policy decisions. It recommends a two-speed approach toward centrality in order to maximize regional incomes and benefit all member economies: first, selective engagement by ASEAN members in productive external partnerships and, second, vigorous policies to share gains across the region. This strategy has solid underpinnings in the Kemp-Wan theorem on trade agreements. It would warrant, for example, a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement with incomplete ASEAN membership, complemented with policies to extend gains across the region. The United States could support this framework by pursuing deep relations with some ASEAN members, while broadly assisting the region's development.
This book investigates long-term development issues for members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It finds that with the proper policy mix—including domestic structural reforms and bold initiatives for regional integration—ASEAN has the potential to reach by 2030 the average quality of life enjoyed today in advanced economies and to fulfill its aspirations to become a resilient, inclusive, competitive, and harmonious (RICH) region. Key challenges moving forward are to enhance macroeconomic and financial stability, support equitable growth, promote competitiveness and innovation, and protect the environment. Overcoming these challenges to build a truly borderless economic region implies eliminating remaining barriers to the flow of goods, services, and production factors; strengthening competitiveness and the institutional framework; and updating some governing principles. But ASEAN should not merely copy the European Union. It must maintain its flexibility and pragmatism without creating a bloated regional bureaucracy. The study’s main message is that through closer integration, ASEAN can form a partnership for achieving shared prosperity in the region and around the globe.
Asia's remarkable economic performance and transformation since the 1960s has shifted the center of global economic activity toward Asia, in particular toward the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies, the People's Republic of China, and India (collectively known as ACI). While these dynamic developing economies do not form any specific institutional group, they constitute very large economies and markets. These emerging Asian giants share common boundaries, opportunities, and challenges. Their trade, investment, production, and infrastructure already are significantly integrated and will become more so in the coming decades. This book focuses on the prospects and challenges for growth and transformation of the region's major and rapidly growing emerging economies to 2030. It examines the drivers of growth and development in the ACI economies and the factors that will affect the quality of development. It also explores the links among the ACI economies and how their links may shape regional and global competition and cooperation.
