The Asean is holding its 30th summit meeting in Manila to assess the progress of the Asean Economic Community (AEC), launched two years ago in Kuala Lumpur. Seen as an ambitious plan to integrate the mostly struggling economies of the 10 Asean member-countries, the launching of the AEC in 2015 was greeted with much scepticism.
But what the AEC has accomplished in the last two years are truly phenomenal and remarkable, considering the awesome problems and challenges it has to hurdle.
The lack of adequate infrastructure facilities in most of its members, their varied trade facilitation policies and practices, and the marked differences in political ideologies, cultural traditions and religious beliefs are just among the problems the architects of the economic integration plan hardly reckoned with.
What is surprising is that these obstacles turned out to be the most compelling reasons the nations involved are determined to make their region a single market.
What is even more inspiring is that Asean members are discarding worn-out traditions, quickly adopting the rapid and radical advances in digital technologies, and even tinkering with their political principles and attachments. The ideological sea changes in Vietnam and Myanmar are dumbfounding. The growing preference for the strongman role in Thailand and the Philippines, though disturbing, is gaining adherence.
In all seminars, workshops and meetings on the ministerial, technical and professional levels and in cultural and sports events, the Asean delegates readily participate in the proceedings or in the games without any ideological, cultural or religious baggage. There is immediate rapport, respect and understanding for each other.
There are certainly many more problems that will impede the integration process. But the imperative need for unity, collective survival and progress among the members is strong and pervasive. The harsh realities in the international economic order will prompt the Asean to sharpen its competitiveness in the world market. The combined GDP of the 10 Asean members is already third in the Asian region and seventh in the world.
With free tariffs and free travels within the community, the over 650 million citizens of Asean will be a huge market among themselves and to other countries.
We are confident that the AEC will overcome its complex problems and challenges and will solidly become a single market that will be as competitive as that of the European Union, China, India, Australia, Canada and the US.
The citizens of the Asean are spirited and driven by their shared hardships and sufferings in colonial days. Endowed with enormous marine and land resources, this new economic bloc will emerge as the most progressive and wealthiest community in the global village. Given the challenges it has yet to overcome, however, the AEC is still a work in progress.