IT is apparent from a number of statements made by the Prime Minister
and a buzz of activity that Malaysia will be taking the chair of Asean next
year not just to warm the seat.
What is less apparent is a commitment to a clear
articulation of a detailed plan for the next phase of Asean integration that
truly reaches out to the people of the region which:
1) Addresses the shortfalls of the Asean integration
process up to now; and
2) Visualises a People’s Asean that energises a feel
good factor about regional getting together.
Call it “The Kuala Lumpur Commitment on the People’s
Asean” if you like (as we have had the Bangkok Declaration, Kuala Lumpur
Declaration on the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality, the Bali Concord
etc), but the more important in its planning is to get input not just from
government and officials, but also from the private sector and civil society.
This is critical. Input from the private sector and
civil society and, their active involvement in the programmes and activities in
the Asean community-building process.
The Prime Minister has said Malaysia will take stock
of what has and has not been achieved against those blueprints on Asean
integration: economic, political-security and socio-cultural. This is necessary
but not sufficient. Sometimes these blueprints become something of a totem pole
around which officials dance to interminable meetings. I have had a look for
instance, at the 2015 calendar of meetings in respect of the economic agenda of
Asean alone, and it is breath taking.
Yes, the stocktaking should take place, as should the
meetings, to give guidance to what can be expected at the magical end of 2015,
especially for businesses as they make their investment and expansion
decisions. However businesses also operate in an environment of uncertainty and
on the basis of prospect. We cannot be exact.
Already at the Asean summit in Myanmar last May, the
CVLM (Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar) member states were accorded
exemptions from zero tariffs for a number of “sensitive” items until 2018. And,
some businessmen in these countries are reading this as their countries not
becoming members of the AEC (Asean Economic Community) until 2018!
That’s how it goes. The guidance after taking stock
can help reduce and mitigate risk. That is all. There will be slip-ups and
push-back.
The prospect of a single Asean economy, however,
remains awesome. That is why foreign multinationals have been busy all over the
region to take advantage of Asean integration efforts, well ahead of Asean
companies themselves, particularly the small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
which form over 95% of enterprises in the region and employ 50%-85% of its
workers.
The US-Asean Business Council, for instance,
recognising both prospect and enterprise base is forming an alliance with the
SMEs. Earlier this month the council organised a successful workshop with over
150 Asean SMEs – and they are running this effort up. What are the big Asean
companies doing?
As we know, if Asean was one economy, at a GDP of
US$2.4 trillion it would be the seventh largest in the world. On the basis of
present growth rates it will be the fourth largest by 2030. It already has the
world’s third largest population in aggregate, about 50% of whom are under 30.
Asean would reap the demographic dividend even as an ageing population afflicts
the major economies, including China. Asean is among the top in the world in
the growth of the middle class, which will drive a huge consumer boom.
Little wonder then that the multinationals are
circling round the Asean wagon. Asean companies, big and small, should pull
their finger out and move faster to catch the Asean prospect. A survey by the
Asean Business Advisory Council last year found only 39% of SMEs were aware of
the promise of Asean economic integration. This is paltry.
You can only blame government for this poor level of
awareness up to a point. You can only seek guidance on where Asean is at in the
2007-15 integration programmes after a fashion. In the end, bold business
decisions must be made.
What Asean governments can do, however, is to deepen
the integration process by truly reaching out to the people and to eschew some
of the postures and predispositions of official-centric community-building
process.
When Malaysia takes the chair next year, the theme is
going to be a People-Centred Asean. Is this not clichéd, and has Asean – all
that peace, stability and prosperity – not always been for the people, you
might ask?
But never mind all that. At least there is clear
purpose running into the post-2015 Asean world which gives a better sense to
community-building than the blueprints of 2007 coming to the expiration of
their shelf-life at the end of next year.
Malaysia should make Asean move to this People’s
Asean, a more essential development than the programmatic political-security,
economic and socio-cultural community pillars that will no doubt be continued
as they fall short of target.
The People’s Asean should become the centrepiece of
Asean just as Asean is Malaysia’s foreign policy. To what purpose, strategy and
in whose interest?
The ultimate objective is the people’s interest as
consumers and citizens. The Asean private sector should deliver better goods
and services more efficiently in the more open Asean economy, but they want
assurances it will be truly open, not just rhetorically. Hence they want
guidance on where we are at the start of 2015 and where we will be at its end.
However, if they waited too long and for greater
certainty, non-Asean companies coming into the regional market while it is only
more or less integrated will trump them. Some of the first-mover advantages
will be gone.
So they had better get a move on and, at the same
time, join the public sector efforts to develop the AEC. This means
communicating to the end-buyer – the people – the benefits they will miss if
they allowed vested interests in their countries to block them.
If the people knew that air fares would come down if
the whole of Asean adopted the Open Skies policy, would they not clamour for
their government to adopt it? If they knew it would create more jobs, attract a
larger number of tourists and add to their, and the national, income, would
they not take on the vested interests that seek to deny them and their country
these benefits?
The thing is to have a huge communication plan to let
the people know these things. Officials, and even businessmen, assume the
people know these things. They do not. They have to be informed.
Use the Asean secretariat to be the centre to
communicate information on decisions already made by their leaders to the
people of Asean. This should not stop at economic matters. Equally significant
agreement on the environment or human rights should also be imparted.
Of course, it will be immediately said the secretariat
is under-resourced to do these things. The answer is not reform of the
secretariat, which will take like forever, but focused allocations by member
states on a voluntary basis to finance high-impact projects.
The Prime Minister has said Malaysia is willing to
make such voluntary contributions to the secretariat. It should encourage
others to do so – but not for the money to go into the general budget to be
gobbled up by the bureaucracy, but to be used to fund specific projects.
Indeed Malaysia should follow the Mao Zedong dictum of
letting a hundred flowers bloom. Make a list of a hundred or more initiatives,
not all through the secretariat, to reach the people of Asean, on Asean and
about Asean, particularly using information technology and social media.
Not all such efforts need to use technology. Some
simple things can truly reach the people’s hearts and minds. For instance,
while there is still some sensitivity over fully visa-free travel in the
region, is it so difficult to have an Asean line at airports and points of
entry?
Many, many things can and need to be done.
Sophisticated and simple things. Things that touch the lives of Aseans. Only
then will they see its meaning. Malaysia should thoroughly prepare itself to
have a real bash at it next year.
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated
in Singapore since 1994.
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