Kuala Lumpur, 30 November 2020 –IDEAS has published our ASEAN Integration Report 2020: To Compete or Co-operate? A call for ASEAN Convergence in Policy in the Wake of COVID-19. Economic growth for most of the ASEAN countries appears to have bottomed out during the second quarter of 2020, and recovery seems to be underway in the third quarter. Although the primary response to the pandemic has occurred at the national level, a regional response from ASEAN can play a complementary role. The recent signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between the 10-member ASEAN and five of its major trade partners should also pave the way for greater regional cooperation in undertaking structural reforms especially within ASEAN’s governance framework in order to spur higher quality economic integration.
The report assesses the state of the ASEAN integration in four distinct areas and highlights the challenges and opportunities arising from the pandemic:
IDEAS CEO, Tricia Yeoh commented that, “One unsurprising but ever-relevant conclusion from the report is that collaboration rather than competition is crucial in the COVID-19 recovery strategies ranging from travel, global supply chains, aviation, digitalization and migration. The foundations of ASEAN regional integration have already been set by recent efforts such as the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015 and the AEC Blueprint 2025. However, the pandemic has exposed the limits in the current state of ASEAN integration. ASEAN Member States should take the opportunity of the pandemic to take concrete steps to strengthen ties as part of a sustainable recovery.”
This report is the culmination of various briefing papers and advocacy activities in the past year under IDEAS’ ASEAN Prosperity Initiative (API). The report urges ASEAN governments to consider a more concentrated approach towards cooperation as the region recovers from the pandemic. The Report includes inputs from Dr Jayant Menon (Visiting Senior Fellow at ISEAS and Senior Fellow at IDEAS), Ridha Aditya Nugraha (Assistant Professor at Universitas Prasetiya Mulya), Suraj Nair (Researcher – Political Economy of Malaysian Industrialisation) and the IDEAS research team.
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