Asean Economic Community needs higher transparency

IN THE recently concluded 26th Asean Summit, it was noted that there has been substantial progress in implementing the AEC (Asean Economic Community) Blueprint. In the chairman's statement, it was highlighted that Asean leaders "welcomed the full implementation to date of 458 measures of the AEC Scorecard targeted for Asean-wide implementation over the period 2008-2015". It further mentioned that the Asean economic ministers have been commended for "identification of pending prioritised key deliverables with the highest trade impact and that can be implemented within the year". Finally, the chairman's statement declared that given the two factors of fully implemented measures and the high-priority measures, the current rate of implementation of the AEC Scorecard stands at 90.5 per cent out of 506 measures.

What does this mean for people? What do they understand from the above on the region's move to an economic community by Jan 1, 2016? Let me divide "people" into three groups - academics or analysts following AEC; businessmen and Asean citizens.

For the first group, these statements have limited meaning. While there is public information on AEC measures of the 2007 Blueprint, there is a lack of information on "prioritised key deliverables". This makes it difficult for observers to validate the 90 per cent-plus achievement rate of AEC targets. Asean thus lacks transparency. In order to comprehensively measure the progress in implementing AEC commitments, one needs access to information of related AEC actions in the individual member economies. But currently, that is not forthcoming. Moreover, the AEC Scorecard that had earlier been published by the Asean secretariat, covering the periods of 2008-2009 and 2010-2011, has been stopped. Although there is no concrete reason for discontinuing the scorecards, it did seem that it was perceived to be sending wrong messages of the low implementation rate. While the first scorecard for 2008-09 reported an implementation rate of around 87.6 per cent of 105 total measures, the second scorecard for 2010-11 reported a lower rate of 56.4 per cent of 172 measures. This would not be acceptable in the case of Asean as this not only lowers the member countries' credibility in meeting the commitments, but also hampers its strategic objective of a united front in the international community.