ASEAN Post 2015 Vision: the architecture of ASEAN FTA

Abstract

The fully implementation of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was set to the end of 2015. Unfortunately some of the targets of the AEC may not be able to fulfill by that period of time. And beyond 2015, there will be a lot more challenges for the group of ASEAN member states to realize their next stage of the economic integration. To set the Post 2015 Vision for ASEAN FTA, it is worth it to analyze the past. Since the tariff reduction schemes was fully implemented by 2010 with the target to elimination all tariffs among ASEAN member and establish a full ASEAN production network. The reasons why the utilization rate of an ASEAN FTA is not that high as expected are the main concerned on the implementation of ASEAN FTA. Related to this issue, a perspective and the lesson learnt from the case of Thailand will be presented on the first part of this article. Then the major challenges in realizing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Community 2015 and the Architecture of Association of Southeast Asian Nations Free Trade Agreements will be presented to complete this article.