ASEAN - Asean to make headway with plans

KUALA LUMPUR: The Asean Economic Community (AEC) will continue to make headway next year while economic integration will gather momentum in Asean which is projected to see an economic growth of between five and six per cent.

International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed had said that Asean was on track to realise the AEC by 2015.

He said the 10-nation grouping, has to date, met its commitments in goods, services and investment, and has implemented 83.8 per cent of the measures under phase one of the AEC Blueprint for the period between 2008 and 2009 and 64.1 per cent under phase two of the period between 2010 and 2011.

The Asean annual report said despite these achievements there were challenges in implementing the AEC whereby the most critical was the need to assess the timeliness of implementing the measures and their impact and effectiveness.

"More action is still needed," it said, adding that it was critical that Asean continue to engage with the private sector, strengthen connectivity, address the development divide, and build stronger institutional support and better macroeconomic and policy coordination.

It noted that the Asean Economic Ministers, which oversees the implementation of measures in the blueprint, attached importance to public-private sector engagement as a platform to ensure greater mutual synergies in the implementation of Asean economic development and integration measures.

Dialogues with private sector representatives from Asean and Dialogue Partners have been and would continue to be held, it said.

The report also said to support Asean integration into the global economy, engagement with Dialogue Partners also continued with the implementation of ongoing Free Trade Agreements and Economic Partnership with China, Japan, South Korea, India, as well as, Australia and New Zealand.

At the inaugural CIMB Asean Conference 2011 in October, CIMB Group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Nazir Razak proposed that the next Asean secretary-general be appointed from the corporate sector to speed up Asean economic integration and smoothen cross-border regional businesses.

Lamenting that most initiatives from Asean organisations were limited to government-to-government levels, Nazir said the region needed "someone who could really shake things up".

Expressing his concern, Nazir said: If we look at Asean corporates today, there is still lots of constraint to cross-border trading. This is my frustration. We need to support these companies.

The secretary-general is appointed by the Asean Summit for a non-renewable term of five years while being selected from among nationals of the Asean member states on alphabetical rotation.

Bernama

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