ASEAN for Southeast Asia

In the picture, a bather is opening a cabin with a key. ASEAN is probably the most successful regional organization in Asia and the Pacific in building keys for development. These are comments related to the coming 13th ASEAN Summit, as proposed by United Nations.

In terms of investment and financial flows, the poorest countries need efforts for financing development and crisis prevention. ICT sector could be strong in Southeast Asia as the world ICT market continues to grow steadily, but it needs to integrate, with integrated policies and regulations on the use of ICT, a regional physical infrastructure that includes Internet connectivity, availability of skilled ICT professionals and an integrated labour market.

ICT is fundamental for the competitiveness of other economic sectors. Southeast used to compete in the global economy by relying on low-cost labour, is now pressed to improve the processes, to innovate, and to improve competitiveness through the use of ICT. The more competitive countries are also the ones with higher e-readiness. The Global Competitiveness Report 2006/2007 of the World Economic Forum ranked Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand among the top 35 economies in the world in terms of competitiveness.

In sum, if the free market policies do not help the poorest countries, somebody has to do it, and for this reason ASEAN exists. The way to go is integration. By integrating, all countries benefit from a higher community of skills workers, a larger set of resources and a larger critical market mass.

Report can be downloaded here.