China news agency, Beijing on February 17, Malaysian prime minister najib razak said asean should become the world's seventh largest economy in the next 10 years, GDP reached $4 trillion by 2020. That means asean's GDP will almost double today. Asean's development is expected to be completed and improved by the asean community.
The asean community includes the asean political and security community, the asean economic community and the asean socio-cultural community. The asean community is scheduled to be completed on December 31, 2015, with the focus on the establishment of the asean economic community (AEC). Xu ningning, co-chair of the china-asean business association and executive director of the china-asean business council, believes that asean faces a major test in 2015.
Non-tariff barrier is the main problem that restricts trade.
Asean economic community will form a prosperous, active and with high competitiveness, as well as the single market, single production base of the economic community, implementation, trade of goods, services, investment and skilled Labour mobility. According to mustapha, Malaysia's minister for international trade and industry, asean will integrate regional economies into a single market similar to the eu by the end of 2015.
At present, asean is striving to narrow the development gap between asean countries and asean and the world through the implementation of the asean integration initiative (IAI). Through the implementation of the master plan for asean connectivity (MPAC), we will promote connectivity among the people, economy and infrastructure in asean.
Mr Xu said asean would complete the remaining tasks of the asean community roadmap in 2009-2015. At present, 10 percent of the asean community construction plan has not been completed, and most of it is the difficulty of community construction.
According to the asean economic community construction schedule, in 2015, trade between asean countries began to reduce tariffs further from January, xu said. In addition to some sensitive products, tariff is no longer a major issue restricting trade between asean countries, and the main issue is non-tariff barriers, which requires effective measures to facilitate trade facilitation. This year, the asean economic community is facing a number of tasks, including harmonization of customs standards, trade rules, liberalization of the financial sector, and protection of investment.
"According to the requirements of the construction of the asean economic community, most countries need to develop, modify, and through the related economic laws and regulations, this is an asean countries implementing internal reform and opening to the outside of the system construction, needs a process." "Xu said.
According to a recent survey of southeast Asia of 171 multinational companies, about 56% of the multinational companies that implement the AEC will in a few years later, while 36.9% of companies that need to be implemented after years of waiting, only 3.5% think the AEC will by the end of the year.
According to the research, given the global economic growth is not stable, the international oil prices are still low and the investment market sentiment three factors carefully, most of the multinational companies, said the AEC may not be in the original on December 31, 2015.
Xu said that the completion of the asean economic community will bring many development opportunities to asean member states, but also face many challenges. At present, many enterprises in asean countries still lack understanding of the asean economic community, and are not even ready to deal with it.
The asean economies in transition face structural problems.
At the end of 2015, asean should not only reach the goal of asean economic community, but also lead the negotiation of the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP). However, it is not easy to accomplish these two epoch-making events in regional economic cooperation. The four asean countries are members of the trans-pacific partnership (TPP), which is also expected to be formally signed this year. 2015 is a busy year for asean countries.