More importantly the development of a competitive economic region will integrate ASEAN members in the global supply chain networks by harmonizing free trade commitments with their trading partners and embracing global standards and best practices.
Each member state of the economic union has its own competitive advantage, which the manufacturing businesses can capitalize on to achieve the best outcomes.
Singapore businesses that were stifled by the small local market will now have access to a huge consumer base of over 600 million.
AEC will create preferential market access within the economic bloc for goods and services originating in ASEAN and also facilitate preferential access to the rest of the Asia Pacific region.
Singapore has the lowest corporate tax among all ASEAN member states; as a result companies may attempt to shift their profits to Singapore.
source : http://www.guidemesingapore.com/
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source : http://www.business-in-asia.com/
The regional integrations objective is to create a competitive market of over 600 million people in Asean countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
All Asean countries are more important to foreign investors if they are considered as one node in a larger regional market of nearly 600 million people – a single market.
The Asean Free Trade Agreement will be expanded to zero tariffs on almost all goods by 2015.
MICE tourism opportunities are particularly large and hopefully countries that have the most experience in this area such as Thailand and SIngapore will render their assistance to those with weak MICE experience – recent examples of this are Thailand with Vietnam and also some talk in Thailand about rendering assistance in Laos and possibly Cambodia.
Some specialists also commented about the lack of leadership on this issue – the role of Asean chairmanship is a rotating position and a series of officials from the poorer, less developed Asean countries will be the chair of Asean for the next few years which means that leadership will be inexperienced and possibly be less interested in pushing ahead quickly with integration on all fronts.
Hard infrastructure: Many countries governments have plans to upgrade their infrastructure, such as the plan of three highways linking Asean – the North/South one linking South China through Myanmar, Thailand, Lao and Vietnam; the East/West Corridor linking Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam; and the South/South one linking Myanmars Dawei deep seaport, Thailands Laem Chabang and Cambodia .
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