by H.E. Ong Keng Yong
Secretary-General of ASEAN
ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta 7-8 June 2007
Ladies and Gentlemen, colleagues, good afternoon and welcome to the ASEAN Economic Community Coordinating Conference (ECOM).
1. I am pleased to have the presence of various sectoral bodies and private sector representatives here to jointly discuss the draft ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint and its strategic schedule, which all of us are developing to formulate the operational steps in building the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. Your presence here over the next two days would help foster greater sense of ownership of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint among the stakeholders and ensure that the characteristics and elements of the ASEAN Economic Community and its schedule of implementation are consistent across sectors and with the Leaders’ mandate. Comments and inputs from the Conference shall be transmitted to senior officials for their consideration.
2. You may recall that the ASEAN Leaders decided in January 2007 to accelerate the establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015 as envisioned in the ASEAN Vision 2020 and the ASEAN Concord II and, in particular, to transform ASEAN into a highly competitive region that increasingly integrates into the global economy, where there is free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labour, freer flow of capital, and equitable economic development.
3. In essence, ASEAN Economic Community is both a vision and a work in progress. What I would like to do this afternoon is to highlight three key messages in moving forward with this vision through a comprehensive blueprint:
- Community building;
- Consultations and coordination; and
- Implementation
4. First, let me begin by explaining briefly why ASEAN needs to build an Economic Community. It is often cited that increased global competition for trade and investment, particularly with the rise of China and India, is the major impetus for ASEAN Economic Community. A stronger, integrated and more competitive ASEAN is seen as necessary to overcome the preferential treatment some other countries receive. In addition, the Community is intended to create a single market of more than half a billion people for consumer goods offering scope for producers to exploit economies of scale. This will then boost significantly ASEAN’s attractiveness to investors.
5. While it is true that ASEAN is responding to changing global landscape and dynamics, the building of ASEAN Economic Community goes a long way back to our 40 years of history. It is not a plan hatched in the face of global competition. When it was established in 1967, ASEAN did not set itself an ambitious goal of becoming a regional organisation with complex institutional structures and machinery for effective functions. That evolves and over time, we have achieved significant milestones, which include, among others, the signing of Framework Agreement on Enhancing ASEAN Economic Cooperation which marked the basis for establishment of ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). The creation of an ASEAN Economic Community is thus a natural progression towards greater cohesiveness in ASEAN.
6. Second, success of community building requires the involvement of all stakeholders in the integration process. This includes frequent exchange of ideas among stakeholders and keeping the business communities and people of ASEAN informed of the progress of this community building. It is not new that there has been a “communications gap” between ASEAN and its stakeholders. Although we have various consultation mechanisms, these are limited to specific policy initiatives and stakeholders often have the impression that the channels through which they can take part in the debate are limited or inaccessible.
7. The establishment of comprehensive communications and coordination between the public sector, the private sector and other stakeholders must be a priority, since it allows government officials to be exposed to the real effects of their decisions and it allows representatives of the business community not only to become involved in the process of decision-making, but, equally importantly, to understand that their constructive inputs can have a positive influence on government policy. A conference like ECOM would thus provide an excellent avenue for enhanced communications to ensure that stakeholders from the government and the business community share at least some of the same goals and monitor implementation of the same activities.
8. Third, an ASEAN dimension of common understanding and aspiration towards the ASEAN Economic Community still requires perspiration to reach there. That is, we need to pool and optimise our scarce resources to implement initiatives geared towards achieving ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. While it is important to explore new measures and areas to achieve deeper integration, we should accord priority to existing measures already agreed by ASEAN and act expeditiously and credibly.
9. Indeed, the process of building an ASEAN Economic Community is a very challenging task. Sharing the same aspiration of Community Building across ASEAN, effective cross-sectoral coordination with frequent exchange of ideas, and acting expeditiously are key to achieving ASEAN Economic Community by 2015.
10. It is clear that the tasks ahead would be too much, and too important, for any one of us alone. New strategies and partnerships had to be forged and the business community, among others, was enjoined to get involved as the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint is a shared responsibility of each one of us here. With these elements in place, I personally believe that ASEAN is on the right track in building the ASEAN Economic Community and I wish all of you a successful ECOM.
11. Thank you.
