Asean economic officials to discuss ways of boosting regional economy

By The Nation

 

Auramon Supthaweethum

 

Permanent secretaries from Asean countries’ economic ministries are scheduled to hold a teleconference on Tuesday (July 28) to deliberate on how their governments can get together to boost the region’s economy in the fallout of Covid-19.

 

Auramon Supthaweethum, director general of the Department of Trade Negotiations, said at the “38th High Level Task Force on Asean Economic Integration” teleconference, the permanent secretaries will evaluate the progress Asean Economic Community (AEC) has made since it was established in 2015.

 

They will also discuss the AEC Blueprint 2025, assess changes in the world’s trading system and how it may affect Asean in the future. International standards, including legal regulations, as well as Asean’s fourth industrial revolution strategy will also be on the agenda.

 

Thailand’s export to Asean countries in 2019 was worth Bt62.9 billion and imports accounted for Bt45.02 billion. The biggest markets for Thai products are Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30391996

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-07-27

 

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I know there is a lot of trade between Asean economies as is evidenced by the figures in the above article, however my view is that Asean is a failure in its goal to become a powerful, tied together, economic block. Since 2010 all Asean countries have pretty much done what they wanted to to do regardless of other Asean countries in order to grow their economy as evidenced by some countries going along with Chinese infrasctructure projects while others disregarding their neighbors on damns, etc. the list goes on. Asean will continue to have these useless meetings while the governments of each Asean nation will continue to do what is in its best interests and not the economic bloc.

22 hours ago, webfact said:

to deliberate on how their governments can get together to boost the region’s economy in the fallout of Covid-19.

With the loss of Thailand's 100% tourism , and 20% gdp, it will be a more a case of holding on to what they have rather than boosting anything