This is an article repost.
OFFICIALS of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) are set to meet in Jakarta this week to look at regulations that will ensure the region’s transition into an Asean Economic Community (AEC) by 2015.
Trade Undersecretary Adrian Cristobal Jr. said the Philippines is joining hands with the other Asean member-states in working out measures that will deliver high-impact results toward the envisioned economic integration.
“Regulatory reform is key to this endeavor. Strengthening our regulatory environment would reinforce our integration within Asean and provide us access to the opportunities being offered in the ongoing regional integration efforts,” he said.
Asean has 10 member-countries, namely, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Also, at the high-level task force (HLTF) meeting, officials will review the regional integration targets and share their best practices in regulatory reforms.
In the Philippines, for instance, Cristobal said regulatory reforms took a developmental direction when efforts were made to deregulate or liberalize strategic industries or sectors in the 1990s.
For instance, the deregulation of the local telecommunications industry transformed the country’s bleak telecommunications landscape in the ’80s into one of the country’s success stories in regulatory reforms.
“This landmark policy had significant impact to the national economy and was critical in making the Philippines a leading provider of IT [information technology] and BPO [business-process outsourcing] services today, including dramatic growth in terms of number of industry players in various market segments [landline, cellular communications, Internet services]. To date, the Philippines has 4.1 million landline subscribers as of 2010 and 90 million mobile-phone subscribers from essentially zero in 1995, and 7.5 million Internet subscribers,” Cristobal said.
Several institutions handle the country’s regulatory reforms, including the Board of Investments, Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Department of Transportation and Communications, and the National Telecommunications Commission.
The Asean HLTF economic integration is composed of high-ranking trade officials from the 10 Asean economies and functions primarily as an advisory body to the economic ministers of the Asean member-states. Its primary responsibility is to ensure that the different Asean economies are on track and on time with the plans and programs intended to achieve the vision of an Asean Economic Community by 2015.
Also to be discussed in the meeting are AEC scorecard and the evolving regional architecture based on Asean commitments in free-trade agreements.
By 2015 the AEC envisions a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region with equitable economic development, and a region fully integrated into the global economy.
“It is important and strategic for the Philippines to be part of an integrated region. Strengthening Asean means benefits to our economy in terms of increased access to markets such as New Zealand, Australia, China, Japan, India and Korea,” Cristobal said.
The Philippines currently has preferential trade agreements through Asean with China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.
==============================================================================
By: Max de Leon
Source: Business Mirror, July 26, 2011
To view the original article, click here.
Comment here