A step towards intensified economic integration?

Abstract

In order to strengthen the co-prosperity area in Southeast Asia, ASEAN has finally come to terms with the importance of intra-ASEAN economic cooperation. Many efforts, in the past, were fruitless until some ASEAN officials finally launched upon the challenge of forming a free trade area known as AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Area). Intra-ASEAN trade has not been boosted up more than 20 percent of total ASEAN trade with the world. This is in contrast of most other serious economic groupings. Of course, lack of commitments to true economic cooperation have been cited as part of the cause. Also, there is a greater degree of economic complementarity between ASEAN economies and the industrial and newly industrialized economies, than between ASEAN themselves. Finally, the development levels in ASEAN differ widely, from Indonesia with a per capita income of US$560 in 1990, to Singapore with a base of US$11,245 in the same year. This kind of scenario makes it difficult to imagine how a concept such as market sharing and resource pooling within the group should be applied in ASEAN. It even leads one to conclude that ASEAN viability will be desirable if ASEAN is able to succeed in the concrete sphere of intra-ASEAN economic cooperation.