AEC should be seen as a work in progress

AS the Asean Economic Community's (AEC) 2015 deadline approaches, there are more detractors than supporters. The majority seems to feel that the initiative's deliverables - namely, an integrated production space with free movement of goods, services, and skilled labour - will not be achieved by December 2015.

This broad statement has some merit. But we must ask, "What was the real definition of economic community, when Asean decided to form an AEC?" Even if we go with the notion of "Asean cannot deliver on AEC", how far is Asean, as an organisation, accountable for that? And can AEC alone be responsible for policy changes in domestic economy, and hence the possible negative fallouts? To answer these questions, I will attempt to explain five crucial facts about Asean economic cooperation. This is important, as regardless of any criticism Asean will announce the attainment of the AEC on Dec 31, 2015.

Fact one: The AEC was not developed on the basis of the European Union (EU) model, though there are some learning experiences to be gleaned from this process.