ASEAN (acronym for Association of Southeast Asian Nations), is an economic organization of ten countries located in Southeast Asia. The organization was formed by an act of Bangkok Declaration on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
The membership has expanded to include Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Its aims include economic growth, social progress, cultural development, protection of regional peace and stability, as well as opportunities for member nations to discuss differences peacefully.
ASEAN covers a land area of 4.46 million km², which is 3% of the total land area of Earth, and has a population of approximately 600 million people, which is 8.8% of the world's population. The sea area of ASEAN is about three times larger than its land counterpart. In 2010, its combined nominal GDP had grown to US$1.8 trillion. If ASEAN were a single entity, it would rank as the ninth largest economy in the world.
What is The ASEAN Summit?
The organisation holds meetings, known as the ASEAN Summit, where heads of government of each member meet to discuss and resolve regional issues, as well as to conduct other meetings with other countries outside of the bloc with the intention of promoting external relations.
The ASEAN Leaders' Formal Summit was first held in Bali, Indonesia in 1976. Its third meeting was held in Manila in 1987 and during this meeting, it was decided that the leaders would meet every five years. Consequently, the fourth meeting was held in Singapore in 1992 where the leaders again agreed to meet more frequently, deciding to hold the summit every three years. In 2001, it was decided to meet annually to address urgent issues affecting the region. Member nations were assigned to be the summit host in alphabetical order except in the case of Burma which dropped its 2006 hosting rights in 2004 due to pressure from the United States and the European Union.The organisation holds meetings, known as the ASEAN Summit, where heads of government of each member meet to discuss and resolve regional issues, as well as to conduct other meetings with other countries outside of the bloc with the intention of promoting external relations.
By December 2008, the ASEAN Charter came into force and with it, the ASEAN Summit will be held twice in a year.
The formal summit meets for three days. The usual itinerary is as follows:
- Leaders of member states would hold an internal organisation meeting.
- Leaders of member states would hold a conference together with foreign ministers of the ASEAN Regional Forum.
- A meeting, known as ASEAN Plus Three, is set for leaders of three Dialogue Partners (People's Republic of China, Japan, South Korea)
- A separate meeting, known as ASEAN-CER, is set for another set of leaders of two Dialogue Partners (Australia, New Zealand).
| List of ASEAN Formal Summits | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No | Date | Country | Host | Host leader |
| 1st | 23–24 February 1976 |  Indonesia | Bali | Soeharto |
| 2nd | 4–5 August 1977 |  Malaysia | Kuala Lumpur | Hussein Onn |
| 3rd | 14–15 December 1987 |  Philippines | Manila | Corazon Aquino |
| 4th | 27‒29 January 1992 |  Singapore | Singapore | Goh Chok Tong |
| 5th | 14‒15 December 1995 |  Thailand | Bangkok | Banharn Silpa-archa |
| 6th | 15‒16 December 1998 |  Vietnam | Hanoi | Phan Văn Khải |
| 7th | 5‒6 November 2001 |  Brunei | Bandar Seri Begawan | Hassanal Bolkiah |
| 8th | 4‒5 November 2002 |  Cambodia | Phnom Penh | Hun Sen |
| 9th | 7‒8 October 2003 | Indonesia | Bali | Megawati Soekarnoputri |
| 10th | 29‒30 November 2004 |  Laos | Vientiane | Bounnhang Vorachith |
| 11th | 12‒14 December 2005 | Malaysia | Kuala Lumpur | Abdullah Ahmad Badawi |
| 12th | 11‒14 January 20071 | Philippines2 | Cebu | Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo |
| 13th | 18‒22 November 2007 | Singapore | Singapore | Lee Hsien Loong |
| 14th3 | 27 February – 1 March 2009 10–11 April 2009 | Thailand | Cha Am, Hua Hin Pattaya | Abhisit Vejjajiva |
| 15th | 23 October 2009 | Thailand | Cha Am, Hua Hin | |
| 16th | 8–9 April 2010 | Vietnam | Hanoi | Nguyễn Tấn Dũng |
| 17th | 28–31 October 2010 | Vietnam | Hanoi | |
| 18th4 | 7–8 May 2011 | Indonesia | Jakarta | Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono |
| 19th4 | 14–19 November 2011 | Indonesia | Bali | |
| 20th4 | 3–4 April 2012 | Cambodia | Phnom Penh | Hun Sen |
| 1 Postponed from 10‒14 December 2006 due to Typhoon Utor. | ||||
| 2 hosted the summit because Burma backed out due to enormous pressure from US and EU | ||||
| 3 This summit consisted of two parts. The first part was moved from 12‒17 December 2008 due to the 2008 Thai political crisis. The second part was aborted on 11 April due to protesters entering the summit venue. | ||||
| 4 Indonesia proposed a swap with Brunei as it will play host to APEC (and possibly the G20 meeting) in 2013. | ||||
"ASEAN Economic Community"
ASEAN has emphasised regional cooperation in the “three pillars”, which are security, sociocultural integration, and economic integration. The regional grouping has made the most progress in economic integration by creating an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. The average economic growths of ASEAN's member nations during 1989–2009 was Singapore with 6.73 percent, Malaysia with 6.15 percent, Indonesia with 5.16 percent, Thailand with 5.02 percent, and the Philippines with 3.79 percent. This economic growth was greater than the average Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation economic growth, which was 2.83 percent.
From CEPT to AEC
A Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme to promote the free flow of goods within ASEAN lead the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). The AFTA is an agreement by the member nations of ASEAN concerning local manufacturing in all ASEAN countries. The AFTA agreement was signed on 28 January 1992 in Singapore. When the AFTA agreement was originally signed, ASEAN had six members, namely, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Vietnam joined in 1995, Laos and Burma in 1997, and Cambodia in 1999. The latecomers have not fully met the AFTA's obligations, but they are officially considered part of the AFTA as they were required to sign the agreement upon entry into ASEAN, and were given longer time frames in which to meet AFTA's tariff reduction obligations.
The next step is ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) with main objectives are to create a:
- single market and production base
- highly competitive economic region
- region of equitable economic development
- region fully integrated into the global economy
Since 2007, the ASEAN countries gradually lower their import duties among them and targeted will be zero for most of the import duties at 2015.
Since 2011, AEC has agreed to strengthen the position and increase the competitive edges of small and medium enterprises (SME) in the ASEAN region.
aseanblogger.com has agreed to set up online ASEAN community with aim to raise people's awareness on the issue of AEC by 2015. The content of the portal currently consisted of subjects varying from security to culinary and in the future will also touch tourist sites and local culture.
Comprehensive Investment Area
The ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Area (ACIA) will encourage the free flow of investment within ASEAN. The main principles of the ACIA are as follows
- All industries are to be opened up for investment, with exclusions to be phased out according to schedules
- National treatment is granted immediately to ASEAN investors with few exclusions
- Elimination of investment impediments
- Streamlining of investment process and procedures
- Enhancing transparency
- Undertaking investment facilitation measures
Full realisation of the ACIA with the removal of temporary exclusion lists in manufacturing agriculture, fisheries, forestry and mining is scheduled by 2010 for most ASEAN members and by 2015 for the CLMV (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Burma, and Vietnam) countries.
Trade in Services
An ASEAN Framework Agreement on Trade in Services was adopted at the ASEAN Summit in Bangkok in December 1995. Under AFAS, ASEAN Member States enter into successive rounds of negotiations to liberalise trade in services with the aim of submitting increasingly higher levels of commitments. The negotiations result in commitments that are set forth in schedules of specific commitments annexed to the Framework Agreement. These schedules are often referred to as packages of services commitments. At present, ASEAN has concluded seven packages of commitments under AFAS.
Single Aviation Market
The ASEAN Single Aviation Market (SAM), proposed by the ASEAN Air Transport Working Group, supported by the ASEAN Senior Transport Officials Meeting, and endorsed by the ASEAN Transport Ministers, will introduce an open-sky arrangement to the region by 2015. The ASEAN SAM will be expected to fully liberalise air travel between its member states, allowing ASEAN to directly benefit from the growth in air travel around the world, and also freeing up tourism, trade, investment and services flows between member states.Beginning 1 December 2008, restrictions on the third and fourth freedoms of the air between capital cities of member states for air passengers services will be removed, while from 1 January 2009, there will be full liberalisation of air freight services in the region. By 1 January 2011, there will be liberalisation of fifth freedom traffic rights between all capital cities.
Free Trade Agreements With Other Countries
ASEAN has concluded free trade agreements with China (expecting bilateral trade of $500 billion by 2015), Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and most recently India. The agreement with People's Republic of China created the ASEAN–China Free Trade Area (ACFTA), which went into full effect on 1 January 2010. In addition, ASEAN is currently negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Union. Republic of China (Taiwan) has also expressed interest in an agreement with ASEAN but needs to overcome diplomatic objections from China.
ASEAN six majors
ASEAN six majors refer to the six largest economies in the area with economies many times larger than the remaining four ASEAN countries.
The ASEAN six majors are (GDP nominal 2010 based on IMF data. The figures in parentheses are GDP PPP.)
From CMI to AMRO
Due to Asian financial crisis of 1997 to 1998 and long and difficult negotiations with International Monetary Fund, ASEAN+3 agreed to set up a mainly bilateral currency swap scheme known as the 2000 Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) to anticipate another financial crisis or currency turmoil in the future. In 2006 they agreed to make CMI with multilateralisation and called as CMIM. On 3 May 2009, they agreed to make a currency pool consist of contribution $38.4 billion each by China and Japan, $19.2 billion by South Korea and totally $24 billion by all of ASEAN members, so the total currency pool was $120 billion. A key component has also newly been added, with the establishment of a surveillance unit.
The ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic and Research Office (AMRO) will start its operation in Singapore in May 2011. It will perform a key regional surveillance function as part of the $120 billion of Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) currency swap facility that was established by Finance Minister and Central Bank Governors of ASEAN countries plus China, Japan and South Korea in December 2009.
According to some analysts, the amount of $120 billion is relatively small (cover only about 20 percent of needs), so coordination or help from International Monetary Fund is still needed.
Foreign Direct Investment
In 2009, realized Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was $37.9 billion and increase by two-fold in 2010 to $75.8 billion. 22 percent of FDI came form the European Union, followed by ASEAN countries themselves by 16 percent and then followed by Japan and US. European Union and US has debt problems, while Japan should make tsunami recovery. China who helped Asia lead the global post-2008 recovery still grapples with 3-years high inflation. So, in the longterm all of the problems will give negative impact to ASEAN indirectly. There are possibility to push some programs of ASEAN Economic Community before 2015.
Intra-ASEAN travel
with free visa among ASEAN countries, a huge intra-ASEAN travel occurred and on the right track to establish an ASEAN Community in the years to come. In 2010, 47 percent or 34 million from 73 million tourists were intra-ASEAN travel.
Intra-ASEAN trade
Until end of 2010, Intra-Asean trade were still low which mainly of them were mostly exporting to countries outside the region, except Laos and Myanmar were ASEAN-oriented in foreign trade with 80 percent and 50 percent respectively of their exports went to other ASEAN countries.
source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki
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