ASEAN Integration
The Association of the Southeast Asian Nations consists of ten countries namely, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It is a community which is found in one of the most dynamic regions in the world and is made up of more than 600 million people. Over the past ten decades, ASEAN's share of world GDP and world trade has sharply increased. Its regional integration agenda was meaningfully deepened in the year 2003 when its members adopted the ambitious goal of forming an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. The event indicates how rapidly approaching the association is into a new milestone. During their annual ASEAN Summit Meeting in November 2007 held in Singapore, the blueprint for realizing an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 was adopted and signed by ASEAN Leaders. It is important to have an understanding of the varying stages of their economic development and the development gaps that exist between and among them to ensure that the benefits from the ASEAN Community are shared among all ASEAN Member States. Two of ASEAN’s frameworks aim to address two development issues, namely, the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) and Narrowing the Development Gap (NDG). Specifically, the ASEAN Integration aims to provide support to the community’s newer and lesser developed member states, namely, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam (CLMV). ASEAN hopes to accelerate the regional integration process as a whole by augmenting the capacity of CLMV to implement regional agreements. The AEC is expected to have far-reaching economic consequences, by significantly promoting intra- and extra- ASEAN trade and investment and strengthening the global importance of the ASEAN as an economic block. Global businesses need to closely monitor the ASEAN developments and consider their business opportunities, further optimizing their global supply chains. To help you navigate through this changing