The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has set Dec. 31, 2015 as its target date for regional economic integration — including a single market and production base with the free movement of goods, services, investment and skilled labor, and the freer flow of capital.
With the Asean Economic Community’s December 2015 deadline looming, how much further does the region have to go?
Iwan Azis, head of the Office of Regional Economic Integration at the Asian Development Bank, spoke with Bloomberg Brief’s Justin Jimenez to weigh in on its progress.
Then, in the early 2000s, Asean began to experience a lot of foreign investment from neighboring Asian countries, the “Plus Three” — Korea, Japan and China. In the last few years, investors from within Asean have started to invest in other Asean countries. If we want to make a prognosis on what’s going to happen in the next few years, I think this trend will continue, but I am interested in observing the nature of the investments. Suppose there is a Korean investment in the Philippines. They won’t be investing using U.S. dollars or foreign currency, but Philippine pesos — foreign investment, but operating with local currency.