ASEAN Economic Community: directions and prospects of formation

Abstract

The article considers the process of formation of the ASEAN Economic Community from 2003. ASEAN serves as a center of integration processes in the Asia-Pacific region and the most advanced integration agreement in the developing world. ASEAN operates since 1967 as a part of five countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. Later the other five countries – Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar – have joined it. Its objectives are the military-political stabilization in the region and the formation of customs union. If the first goal
has been achieved, the second one – not. It was possible to establish a preferential trade area before 1990. Increasing levels of economic development of the participating states allowed to move to a real integration in the 1990s. The creation of a free trade area - AFTA was achieved in 2000 for the six most economically developed countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Brunei) and in 2003 for the other participating states. AFTA was established on the basis of reduction in customs duties to 0-5 per cent and partial liberalization of non-tariff barriers to trade in goods. It was necessary to deepen the integration processes through the liberalization of trade in goods and services, investment and the movement of skilled labour, i.e. to achieve the goals set in the format of the economic community. At the moment, the greatest success is formation of a single market for goods. Completion of the ASEAN Community as an economic, political and socio-cultural one, has been scheduled for the end of 2015. According to the ASEAN Scorecard (2012), the member states have implemented many of the planned measures, but the percentage of their completion is no more than 2/3 on average. Reasons relate to the objective and subjective economic and political factors.