Integrating Southeast Asia

Integrating Southeast Asia

There is a need for bold moves by ASEAN countries to further open up their markets, dismantle their internal barriers, and harmonize their rules and procedures before goods, services, investment and labor can flow productively.

The European Union began with coal and steel. What will it take to get the ball rolling for ASEAN?

The regional grouping will also have to change its slow-moving decision-making structures and processes if it wants to progress from being an inter-governmental association to an EU-style single economic entity.

After having talked for some years now about the need for closer economic integration, the challenge for the leaders gathered in Kuala Lumpur is to translate words into action, and nail down some of those details which would bring home to the people in the region the practical benefits of belonging to a single community. -- New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur