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8 - Achieving the AEC 2015: Challenges for the Philippines
- from Part I - Challenges for Member Countries
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- By Jenny D. Balboa, Institute for Development Studies, Fatima Lourdes E. Del Prado, Institute for Development Studies, Josef T. Yap, Institute for Development Studies
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- Book:
- Achieving the ASEAN Economic Community 2015
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 15 May 2012, pp 99-124
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Summary
ASEAN member countries are moving towards achieving the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. Recent studies have shown the benefits of the AEC. For example, the study edited by Plummer and Chia (2009) presents estimates that ASEAN economic welfare will rise by 5.3 per cent or US$69 billion relative to the baseline. It is therefore important for policymakers in the region to sustain the momentum — or perhaps even accelerate the pace — towards establishing the AEC.
Policy measures are being implemented based on the AEC Blueprint agreed on in 2007. However, progress among the ASEAN member countries in meeting their commitments has been uneven. Moreover, many difficult regional issues have not yet been resolved. Among these are wide development gaps and entrenched domestic interests. Hence, achieving the AEC in 2015 may be on the optimistic side. The theme of 2010's ASEAN Summit, “From Vision to Action”, is therefore quite appropriate.
This chapter reviews the progress of the Philippines in meeting its commitments. The progress is largely reflected in the AEC Scorecard, an analytical tool in tracking the achievements of member countries that was developed by ASEAN for this purpose. The framework of the AEC Blueprint is described in Box 1 of the Preface. As of this writing, only the Philippine scorecard for the first batch of priority actions was available. The official data is supplemented by a study conducted by the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA; Corbett and Umezaki 2009).
In the next section, the current Philippine economic situation is described by comparing it with other economies in terms of indicators of competitiveness. Many of the latter are components of the AEC Blueprint. This is followed by a section where the Philippine performance in terms of the ASEAN Scorecard is presented and discussed. As mentioned earlier, the official data will be supplemented by results from the ERIA studies. The penultimate section attempts to explain the progress of the Philippines in meeting its AEC commitments, particularly vis-à-vis the more developed ASEAN countries. The last section looks at structural problems in the Philippines that may prevent it from benefiting from the AEC. These problems also explain the relatively poor performance of the Philippines in terms of competitiveness.
7 - From Economic Reform to Closer Economic Ties: Regional- and National-Level Issues
- from PART II - Economic Co-operation in Southeast Asia
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- By Jenny D. Balboa, Specialist at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Erlinda M. Medalla, Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Josef T. Yap, Philippine Institute for Development Studies
- Edited by Aekapol Chongvilaivan
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- Book:
- Curbing the Global Economic Downturn
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 16 July 2010, pp 124-149
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade, efforts at promoting closer regionalism in East Asia have been stepped up for various reasons, including: (i) a response to the experience and lessons of the 1997 financial crisis; (ii) the gridlock in the Doha round, success of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and expansion of the EU; (iii) the mitigation of political factors that prevented closer co-operation in the past, for example, competition between China and Japan; and (iv) the perception that ASEAN economic integration will not progress far unless other East Asian economies are involved.
One major constraint to this process is the large disparity in economic development in East Asia. Table 1 depicts the situation for fourteen countries of East Asia and the ASEAN member countries including Timor Leste. In terms of per capita income in PPP$, East Asia has the largest disparity when compared to other regional groupings: Latin America, Europe, South Asia, and North Africa. Studies have shown (for example, Venables 2003) that a large disparity in economic development will hinder efforts towards greater economic integration.
This paper examines various policies at the regional and national level that can help narrow the development gap and at the same time increase the chances for effective and meaningful economic integration. At the national level, these policies can be considered as necessary conditions for successful trade liberalization and financial co-operation. Free flow of goods and services is a minimum requirement for ASEAN to function as a single market. On the other hand financial co-operation and integration of financial markets provides a valuable window of opportunity to foment macroeconomic stability and reduce vulnerabilities.
In this context, the following questions will be considered: What are the structural constraints to growth in the Philippines? What institutional and economic reforms, thus far, have been implemented? What factors prompted these reforms? What institutional and economic reforms are needed or lacking?