{"id":47067,"date":"2016-04-21T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T06:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=47067"},"modified":"2018-04-03T17:19:24","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T15:19:24","slug":"south-east-asia-lattrait-lunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/south-east-asia-lattrait-lunion","title":{"rendered":"South-East Asia: the lure of union"},"content":{"rendered":"

ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is far from being a newborn. In fact, it will be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2017. Since its inception, this grouping of now ten countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) has thrived on the idea of containment in the face of a threat, whether real or imagined. In the 1960s, the danger was represented by the spread of communism, before ASEAN took a turn in the 1990s with the integration of the countries of the former communist bloc: Vietnam to begin with, then Laos and Myanmar, and finally Cambodia. Today, the desire to act as a bulwark against the asserted hegemony of China and the expected hegemony of India has led to further integration, with the ultimate stage in this process being the advent of a new common market, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).<\/p>\n

Yet the ASEAN Economic Community has been slow in coming. 13 years to be exact. First mooted in 2002, then confirmed in 2007 with the publication of a timetable for negotiations and agreements, the ASEAN Economic Community was due to come into force on 1 January 2015. But discussions on the free movement of people, goods and capital, as well as the definition of common standards, have been delayed, and the AEC was not finally launched until 31 December 2015. This is Asia, and appearances are still important. So the 2015 target had to be met at all costs!<\/p>\n

So is the ASEAN Economic Community a new common market? Yes and no. In terms of size, this new economic community is comparable to the European Union, with 660 million inhabitants, a GDP of 2,600 billion dollars and regional trade equivalent to 2,500 billion dollars.<\/p>\n

That's where the comparison ends. First and foremost because, unlike the European Union, there is no desire to centralise power. The ASEAN secretariat in Jakarta is anemic compared to the one in Brussels, with its administration of 400 people and an annual budget of 17 million dollars. This compares with a budget of $8.3 billion for the European Commission and its 23,000 officials! Why are the ten members so distrustful of a tutelary authority? Because the association is made up of a mosaic of peoples and religions, but also of economies that are very different from one another, the whole sprinkled with nationalist overtones in practically every country in the zone.<\/p>\n

Our shared history has been turbulent, and the past still weighs heavily today, sometimes even to the limit of rationality. Last year, for example, Indonesia refused help from Singapore and Malaysia during the huge forest fires that hit Sumatra. But there are many other examples: Thailand and Cambodia regularly flare up over territorial claims; Malaysia and Singapore often play \"je t'aime, moi non plus\" (I love you, but I don't like you) over a few trivialities, at least to the European eye; Indonesia and Malaysia, ethnically close, quarrel over the paternity of their traditions, sometimes verging on a \"casus belli\"!<\/p>\n

The AEC is therefore organised around a lowest common denominator: prosperity for all. A programme that has the merit of uniting all the populations of the zone. Within this framework, the main challenge for the AEC will be to reduce the economic differences between the ten countries. On the one hand, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia, the historic members of ASEAN, form a hard core of mature countries, to which are added intermediate economies - Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand - with an average GDP of between US$5,000 and US$9,000 per capita. On the other hand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, although growing rapidly, are still among the poorest in the world. These countries will therefore benefit from a reprieve until 2018 to fully open up their markets to competition from other ASEAN members.<\/p>\n

\"According
According to a 2014 study by the Nielsen consultancy firm, more than 190 million people in ASEAN belonged to the middle classes and had real purchasing power. This figure is expected to more than double by 2020 to 400 million.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Progress has already been made in this area. If the wealth gap between Singapore, the most prosperous country in ASEAN, and the poorest, Myanmar, is 1 to 15 today. It was 1 to 30 in the 1990s! Yet wealth inequality is likely to be the growth driver of the AEC. The priority today is to accelerate the exchange of goods and the mobility of people throughout the region. This means massive investment in infrastructure. In particular, ASEAN is in the process of building a regional rail and motorway network. In Cambodia and Laos, bridges are being built across the Mekong, and in Indonesia across the Sumatra Strait. In the Philippines, the government has decided to develop some fifteen ports. Air transport is certainly the most important factor in the integration of the region.<\/p>\n

The AEC is set to reshape the geographical space of ASEAN with the emergence of new metropolises. In addition to Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City and Manila, Medan, Ipoh, Danang, Davao, Phnom Penh and Vientiane are all part of the urban dynamic. The proliferation of border crossings and the abolition of visas for ASEAN citizens are giving rise to new economic territories that will transcend borders. Eventually, the ASEAN Economic Community will be able to adopt Indonesia's motto: \"unity in diversity\".<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article 1 of 3 in this dossier Special report - ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations<\/a><\/div>

ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is far from being a newborn. In fact, it will be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2017. From the outset, this grouping of ten countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) has thrived on the idea of containment in the face of a threat, whether real or imagined.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[1467],"type-darticle":[],"n_magazine":[1743],"class_list":["post-47067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destinations-emergentes","tag-asean","series-dossier-asean-association-des-nations-du-sud-est-asiastique","n_magazine-n148","vapo-free"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAsie du Sud-Est : l\u2019attrait de l'union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"L'ASEAN, l\u2019Association des Nations du Sud- Est Asiatique, est loin d\u2019\u00eatre un nouveau-n\u00e9. 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