Overall Assessment

ASEAN economic co-operation, by all accounts, stands at a crossroads. It underwent a long transition period of accumulation, both process and substance, that became the basis for subsequent transformation. The period was marked with varied degrees of commitment and coverage, from half-hearted measures to dramatic initiatives, from exemptions and exclusions to full participation, from selected and narrow scope to broad coverage.

Chapter 2 has traced ASEAN economic co-operation along several fronts and each of the six areas reviewed had underlying directions. For example, co-operation in trade aimed to push vigorous intra-ASEAN transactions; in transport, communications, and tourism, co-operation aimed to connect ASEAN; in finance and in banking, co-operation aimed to integrate financial sectors closer.

Many of the early co-operation schemes hardly made inroads into the lofty aims espoused in each sector or area. As a collective group, ASEAN experienced early fumbles in economic co-operation. From trade to industrial development, agriculture to minerals, ASEAN cooperation was characterized by fits and starts. Despite the number of economic co-operation meetings, the outputs generated were not that normally expected from a regional group. Yet, they became important strands of confidence that each of the ASEAN states had strewn towards a regional network. The numerous meetings attended by ASEAN member countries served to continue the process of building trust and familiarity, consensus building, and internalizing a regional perspective among ASEAN officials.

Whether turning the corner in ASEAN economic co-operation was long in coming or not depends on the time frame to be reckoned from the start of regional efforts. The organization began with the First ASEAN Ministerial Meeting and was marked by the signing of the ASEAN Declaration in 1967. Although this was followed by subsequent ministerial meetings, multilateral agreements, other political and organizational arrangements, the First ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting did not take place until November 1975. Four months later, in March 1976, the Second AEM Meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur. In a seeming effort to keep pace with changing global economic developments as these affect ASEAN, three AEM meetings were held in 1979 and 1982, and four in 1987. In many of the interim and subsequent years (after 1987), at least two AEM meetings were held every year. This trend reflected the intensification of member countries’ collective interest in finalizing mechanisms to promote economic cooperation.