ASEAN Economic Integration Scorecard: Priorities of U.S. Companies

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce thanks the ASEAN economic ministers and U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN David Carden for the opportunity to present this survey informing ASEAN governments about the priorities U.S. companies put on the grouping’s various efforts to meet the goals of economic integration under the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). We also thank James Wallar of Nathan Associates for his help in designing the questions and interpreting the results.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest federation representing the interests of more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.
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Creating an ASEAN Economic Community is important for those businesses that expect to increase significantly their trade and investment in the region in the next five years.

How do we know this?

The U.S. Chamber conducted a survey to see whether the ASEAN goal to achieve an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 was important to them. This survey supplements the findings of last year’s survey that gauged ASEAN Member Countries’ progress in implementing their ASEAN commitments.

Frankly, progress has been modest. We didn’t expect to see much more progress this year and wanted to take a step back and ask the basic question: Are ASEAN’s economic goals, as recorded in the ASEAN Blueprint to achieve the AEC, important for businesses? The goals have been endorsed at the political and economic policy levels, but would they make a difference to business? After all, businesses bring money, management, and know-how that raise productivity, contribute to economic growth, create jobs, and lift living standards.

We can report to the economic ministers a resounding answer: “Yes, business is intensely interested in the creation of an AEC along the lines reflected in the blueprint.”

About 60% of the firms surveyed said achieving the goals of the AEC are “quite” or “extremely” important to their companies. Interestingly, 6 % of the firms indicated that they have based their business strategy on a fully integrated ASEAN. These firms appear to be positioning themselves to take full advantage of the regional market reaping the “first mover advantage.” Nearly a third of the firms surveyed base their strategy “considerably” on ASEAN achieving its goals. Twenty-three percent of the firms said they don’t take account of ASEAN, a lower number than one would expect given the continued talk about a country-specific and bilateral focus.

While one cannot infer a trend from a single data point, it would seem that ASEAN has gotten businesses’ attention. What does ASEAN need to do to deliver?