SO soon! Indeed time flies at lightning speed and here staring at us is Asean 2015! And what’s in it for us in academe? But first, a very brief overview of Asean.
We are one of ten countries wishing to band together as a single market. We expect that by end of December this year Asean will have measures mostly in place which are designed, like the European Union, to reduce trade barriers and consequently attract more investments. We expect to have free flow of goods, services, investment and skilled labor among “us” – us, meaning the ten member countries of Southeast Asia with the 617 million people (2011 estimate) inhabiting Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. In the future, two other countries could be incoming members of Asean: Papua New Guinea (on candidate status since 1976) and Timor-Leste (on observer status since 2002). These two countries have a combined population of 7,300,000 (2011 estimate).
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