Although ASEAN cooperation activities are not limited to certain sectors of development or to participation by governments only, in practice ASEAN programmes are focused on three general thrusts, namely:
a. To enhance ASEAN Regionalism through the promotion of wider ASEAN cooperation via exchanges of public sector officials and occasionally involving selected members of the general public,
b. To pursue Regional Economic Integration through harmonization of trade and economic practices, and
c. To enhance ASEAN Competitiveness through the provision of basic support to private sectors and the community in the adjustment process to adapt to the changing environment in the global economy.
The programme thrust to enhance ASEAN Regionalism is extending the traditional exchange programmes that each Member Country has in its bilateral external relations. The aim of this type of programme is to continually build the sense of community among ASEAN citizens through exchanges which are enlarged to involve participants from all 10 ASEAN Member Countries and in many cases with participations of the ASEAN Dialogue Partner countries. Such an enlarged exchange programme had proven to help strengthen ASEAN regionalism through the creation of more cohesive clusters of public service officials, professionals, business leaders, students, the youth, and selected community groups which are eloquent on regional issues, challenges and problem-solving approaches. As can be expected, activities under this programme thrust are more numerous at the start of an ASEAN cooperation when initial contacts had just been established. As an ASEAN cooperation becomes more mature and the clusters of regionalists and ASEAN regionalism grow, activities are shifted to the next level in the direction of regional integration.
The programme thrust to pursue Regional Economic Integration has more focused objectives of actually integrating ASEAN to become a seamless region particularly in the economic and social sense. The aim of this type of programme is to harmonize the relevant practices in the economic and social sectors toward the betterment and more competitive ASEAN region. Typical activities and projects under this programme thrust are dealing with efforts to harmonize policy, legislative frameworks and institutional mechanism, and to build institutional capacities of the Member Countries to implement the necessary changes toward full regional integration. A sequence of generic steps toward regional integration in any given sector is now much better developed in ASEAN which includes:
1) the formulation of framework agreement as the formal basis to start the integration process in certain areas,
2) the development of harmonized nomenclatures and procedures,
3) the adoption of harmonized product and qualification standards,
4) mutual recognition of the harmonized standards, and
5) compliance to apply consistent practices in the selected areas of regional integration.
Although in theory the above sequence seems to be simple, in practice, such as in the implementation of AFTA, the tasks are very tedious, and often instigate responses which require systematic and thorough resolutions.
The programme thrust to enhance ASEAN Competitiveness is critical in ensuring that regional integration would not create new marginalized groups which are becoming less competitive because of the changing environment resulted from ASEAN’s integration to the global economy. Typical activities and projects under this programme thrust are aimed at increasing the resilience of ASEAN communities and private sectors and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the changing economic environment by increasing their capacities to smoothly perform self adjustment processes to adapt to the new and more competitive economic environment. By disseminating knowledge on the new challenges and opportunities in the global economy and introducing new skill and competence requirements, typical ASEAN competitiveness programme would assist community, private sector and SME groups to increase their preparedness to compete in the global economy.
In addition to the above three general programme thrusts, more specific thrusts can be found in the various sectoral plans of actions, work programmes, or initiatives. However, consistent patterns can be observed in the sectoral thrusts where elements of both promoting wider cooperation and pursuing regional integration are always present.
Current Focus
As ASEAN cooperation has reached maturity beyond exchange of best practices among Member Countries, ASEAN development cooperation activities are now geared toward achieving greater and deeper regional integration. Since the launch of ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) initiative in 1992, ASEAN had actually entered into the first stage toward the process to reach full economic integration. Theoretically, free trade is to be followed by the formation of customs union, common market, and then economic union, before the full economic integration is reached. In the context of ASEAN, AFTA has reached its initial implementation beginning in 2003. Systematic efforts to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers are being implemented. The current challenges are to address the details where further adjustments are required beyond the national borders. ASEAN development cooperation would need to be focused on managing these implementation issues at the same time to maintaining the outward looking orientation of ASEAN, including in moving it to the next level of integration toward creating an ASEAN Economic Community. The latter topic was first discussed at the high level during the recent 8th ASEAN Summit in Cambodia, and is currently under preliminary studies by the Member Countries.
Implementing Sectors
Because ASEAN’s programme is aimed at bringing together Member Countries as a group in the efforts to achieve ASEAN’s common objectives, its implementation is always carried out by the most relevant sectors to the subject of the programme. At present, there are 13 clusters of sectors through which ASEAN cooperation activities are channelled. These sectors include:
A. Economic Cooperation
1. Trade (AFTA),
2. Investment,
3. Transport,
4. Telecommunication,
5. Energy,
6. Tourism,
7. Finance,
B. Functional Cooperation
8. Social Development,
9. Environment,
10. Science and Technology,
11. Food, Agriculture and Forestry,
12. Culture and Information,
13. Special Projects
In each of the sector, there are hierarchies of committees from the ministerial, senior officials, to a working/expert group levels. In most cases, the committee structures reflect the sectors and sub-sectors of cooperation in ASEAN.
