KUALA LUMPUR: Although the Asean Economic Community is being touted as a gamechanger for South-East Asia, its benefits will be lost unless the private sector spares no effort to extract maximum advantage from the ambitious single market plan.
This means businesses, small and medium enterprises and young entrepreneurs will have only themselves to blame if they fail to exploit what is surely an initiative that potentially offers immense opportunites.
With 625 million people, the consumer base is enormous which is why it comes as no surpsise that officials and trade and economic ministers are working feverishly to establish AEC by the end of this year.
At the 47th ASEAN Economic Ministerial (AEM) chaired by Malaysia, member economies led by International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed expressed their countries' unwavering commitment to realise AEC.
AEC has undoubtedly become synonym with the 10-member grouping to the extent that it felt like there was no other issue which could have taken centrestage at AEM and related meetings.
With adverse conditions given the meltdown in stock markets, depreciating currencies and plummeting oil prices, the clarion call for South-East Asian ecconomies to work even closer together must only get louder.
The crux of the matter is a far more integrated regional economy via AEC, for which Asean must go beyond the symbolic hand-clasping gesture among leaders and ministers to crystallise freer flow of trade in goods and services.
The current economic malaise seems to be only getting worse by the day, but as ministers pointed out, Asean is not going to stop the region's work towards AEC.
"No roll-back on our commitments," Mustapa declared at the onset of the meetings which Malaysia is chairing.
On its part to explore fully the Asian market, Malaysia has submitted suggestions such as broadening the use of the Chinese yuan in trade and investment to counter the strengthening US dollar.
This is more practical as Asean economies are much more in tune in trading with China due to the proximity and magnitude of their trading volume with the Chinese economy.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise why officials involved in AEC are working literally around the clock to make it a reality by the end of the year.
For the man in the street who might be oblivious to the brouhaha as to what AEC is all about, it basically means freer movement of goods and services within the region without much hassle.
It would also enable the freer flow of investment capital and skilled labour and would entail tariff reductions and streamlining of certain administrative procedures.
That means greater business opportunities for the layman as it would even boost businesses for street vendors to multinational companies in the region, which means it would have widespread benefits.
The Asean bloc has achieved 91.5% compliance towards making AEC a reality with the remaining 8.5% still being ironed out, such as issues pertaining to transportation and expediting cargo clearance.
Some 463 out of the 506 prioritised AEC blueprint measures have been implemented.
Last year, Asean attracted US$136 billion worth of foreign direct investments which surpassed inflows to China, and received 105 million tourist arrivals.
However, it must be noted that AEC is a non-binding agreement and permits backloading and neither should there be misperceptions "red-tape" related to trade and investment and movement of people in Asean will disappear come 2016.
It took 17 years to "almost" eliminate the region's tariffs under the Asean Free Trade Agreement (Afta).
The fact that Afta which was a binding agreement took so long to implement has somewhat raised doubts among the business community as to whether AEC which on the contrary is non-binding can take off in a much shorter time.
Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd Group chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Emir Mavani Abdullah hit the right note when he said that AEC is both beneficial and challenging.
Streamling regulatory, policies and infrastructure is not easy.
"What we worry about is if (in the long run), there will be changes in governments and policies," he said.
Concerns such as these need to be addressed by the respective governments.
He also alluded to the fact that there is no place for protectionist tendencies in AEC.
There should be strong commitments from all member states to help develop each others' markets, CIMB Group
Holdings Bhd Group chief executive officer Tengku Datuk Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said on the AEC.
Equally important is for the people, especially the younger generation, who make up 60% of Asean's population, to wholeheartedly understand and embrace AEC so as to reap its benefits.
The mission is to also ensure that these talented, creative, hard-working and demanding segment of Asean's population are given the opportunities to thrive in a competitive global environment.
Economic integration only has meaning if it leads to equitable and inclusive growth which provides meaningful opportunities for Asean's growing young population.
And whether its trade, investment or people, AEC is not an end goal but a work in progress and a crucial journey which the private sector, SMES and the young people especially must take without hesitation. - Bernama
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