What is ASEAN 2015?( AEC )
ASEAN 2015 is a short term for ASEAN Economic Integration 2015. In a nutshell, the goal of this endeavour is to establish a strong economic community among the members of ASEAN by year 2015.
ASEAN, stands for Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The members of which are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
If we are familiar with the EU , well, that is what ASEAN is aiming for starting 2015.
With ASEAN 2015, member nations are expected to prosper thus paving the way for peace throughout the region and better life for the people.
What is Economic Integration for ASEAN?
Economic Integration simply refers to the free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labour and capital.
Imagine goods from Thailand can be easily sold to Myanmar. Students from Cambodia can easily enrol in Brunei. And engineers from Indonesia can easily practice their profession in Lao. And Filipino entrepreneurs can easily invest in Singapore.
That is how things will change by 2015.
In a nutshell >in the fewest possible words;
Endeavour >try hard to do or achieve;
Entrepreneur > a person who set up business or businesses; taking risk in the hope of profit
Should we be excited?
YES! We should really be excited with this upcoming opportunity.
However, there are pros and cons that we should be aware of !
Latin; pro et contra > for and against, advantages and disadvantages;
More free trade is a bad idea. Free trade works for the corporate class and governments, but not for ordinary people. Lower skilled jobs, like garment making, food processing, etc. in the Philippines might be offshored to lower cost countries like Laos, Cambodia, etc.