Some comments on the allocation of regional industrial projects

Abstract

The first five ASEAN industrial projects. A United Nation Team on ASEAN had proposed three separate but interrelated complementarity agreements, and a system of 'package deal' agreements. The March 1976 Meeting of ASEAN Economic Ministers adopted, inter alia, the regional industrial projects approach. The agreement on the establishment of ASEAN indus- trial projects catering for the regional market is a variant of the UN 'package deal' proposal and amounts to some form of industrial licensing among ASEAN countries for selected new industries; countries allocated the specific industries become more or less monopolist producers in the region for a specified period. The regional project approach may be seen as a solution to the problem of the wide disparities to the level of development of ASEAN countries and of the strong polarising tenden- cies which would otherwise emerge from any scheme of regional industrial integra- tion without government intervention in the distribution of industries. The approach is considered particularly suited to the development of new industries in the ASEAN region, especially where there are significant economies of scale, where the pola- rising effects are strong, and where there are problems of financing.