The ASEAN Economic Community or AEC has now been in place for about 3 weeks and so we thought it was time to revisit what AEC is and how things should (could, may, hopefully) will unfold in the weeks and months ahead.

On the stroke of January 1st, 2016 the member states of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) officially started economic integration called AEC.

ASEAN is home to 625 million people and the combined economies of the 10 ASEAN states – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – is the seventh largest in the world.

The European Union-inspired common market aims at boosting the economy and attracting more investment by lowering tariffs and allowing freer flows of capital, goods, services and skilled labor, however there are no plans for a common currency.

The region is home to economies with an expanding middle class and young workforce and home to extremely diverse markets from richer Singapore to poorer Laos and Cambodia. While Analysts expect that the integration will be a slow process and the initial change will be minimal, we feel confident AEC will make a big statement on the world stage. Stay tuned, it’ll be fun to watch.