Asia Opportunities: Asean Economic Community (AEC) in 2015

- The AEC development has been criticized for being "too slow" and some observers have said that the issues that have been delayed were those of importance and could make or break the success of the integration. Some specialists also commented about the lack of leadership on this issue - the role of Asean chairmanship is a rotating position and a series of officials from the poorer, less developed Asean countries will be the chair of Asean for the next few years which means that leadership will be inexperienced and possibly be less interested in pushing ahead quickly with integration on all fronts. Furthermore, Asean will suffer the departure of a strong leader as the current Asean Secretary General, Thai diplomat Surin Pitsuwan, is completing his 5-year term as Asean Secretary-General this year. As an experienced diplomat Surin Pitsuwan and prior to him the equally experienced Ong Keng Yong from Singapore have pushed ahead on integration. Some observers note that the less experienced officials from poorer and less developed Asean countries set to follow them will not have the same leadership skills, experience or knowledge and that this will tell on future progress.

- Infrastructure development among the Asean countries: both the development of hard infrastructure such as roads, ports, airports, etc. and soft infrastructure such as human resource and training are being concentrated.

Hard infrastructure: Many countries' governments have plans to upgrade their infrastructure, such as the plan of three highways linking Asean - the North/South one linking South China through Myanmar, Thailand, Lao and Vietnam; the East/West Corridor linking Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam; and the South/South one linking Myanmar’s Dawei deep seaport, Thailand’s Laem Chabang and Cambodia (link to our infrastructure article). Thailand's government has also been talking to China about the high-speed train project linking Laos and Thailand’s Nong Khai to the southern border and Malaysia.

For soft infrastructure, better English speaking countries in Asean, such as Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines will have an advantage over countries like Thailand. According to the Bangkok Post, Thailand has established the ‘‘English Speaking Year 2012’’ program in preparation for the merging of the AEC. This is a step in the right direction but what is ultimately needed is not only a program but a new mind-set. Thailand has not given enough attention to improving English skills throughout its education system and now is in a somewhat weaker position to countries such as Vietnam who have given increased attention to this and also benefit from having a western alphabet that makes learning of English both reading and writing easier than in Thailand.

- The banking sector will particularly need to stay ahead of the game to facilitate investors and to support their moves throughout the region. Singaporean and Malaysian banks and telecoms, for instance, have invested heavily in the region and seem to be slightly ahead of other competitors in better preparing themselves for the AEC.

- Executives have to adjust strategy. Inside the AEC, managers will increasingly have to pursue sales opportunities across the region while focusing relentlessly on cost efficiencies by integrating their operations across the region, managing through lean techniques but also developing effective corporate centralization. Externally, managers in countries such as the US, Canada and Europe are going to have to start paying better attention to this new opportunity. Many of them right now seem to have eyes for only China and India. Asia is much more than either of these two countries and western managers need to study and better understand the opportunities that the AEC presents. In China and India, the AEC also is not fully appreciated nor understood and both Indian and Chinese managers need to also focus more attention and to travel and address the opportunities that the AEC presents.

- Asean members still view each other as competitors, for inbound investment and jobs, reported USITC. Ultimately, these distinctions should start to fade to some extent but in the future the line between competitor and collaborator within Asean may become less clear. The Asean members will need legally binding means to enforce compliance with the objectives of the roadmaps, suggested the report.