Economy
Formation and overview
ASEAN has emphasized "three pillars" of regional cooperation: security, sociocultural integration, and economic integration. The regional group has decided to pursue economic integration by creating an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 to establish a common market. The average economic growth of ASEAN's member nations during 1989–2009 was between 3.8% and 7%. This economic growth was greater than the average growth of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which was 2.83 percent. ASEAN has in recent years become a hub for digital adoption. Asia Briefing that e-commerce in the region, specifically in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines have seen dramatic gains, with Singapore and Malaysia leading the pack, accounting for 50 percent of total online sales for ASEAN.
The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) which was signed on 28 January 1992] included a Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) to promote the free flow of goods between member states. 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.