Page 1 - COL Asia Newsletter (10 February 2017)

COL ASIA NEWSLETTER 10 FEBRUARY 2017

ASEAN Economic Community focus for COL Asia

he new ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) founded on 31 December 2015 is the
T focus for COL Asia’s business plans in Asia. The AEC represents the next big step
for the 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), founded in 1967 by
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - and later joined by
Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam under a new founding Charter in 2007.
The AEC - which has no ambitions of becoming an EU-style political union - aims to
transform ASEAN into a closely integrated regional free trade area, with the free
movement of goods, services, investment, capital and skilled labour. Inside this issue:
If ASEAN were one country, it would be the world’s 7th largest economy, with a GDP of
over US$2.4 trillion. Strong economic growth will rank it 4th by 2050. ASEAN is a market Malaysia 2
of more than 600 million people, with the world’s third-largest (and most youthful) labour
force and a growing demand for education.

ASEAN, as the central hub of Asia, has developed ASEAN+1 free trade agreements Vietnam 3
(FTAs) with Australia and New Zealand (jointly), China, Japan, Korea and India.

ASEAN is also leading the negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic ASEAN 4
Partnership (RCEP) - a regional FTA involving ASEAN and its six ASEAN+1 FTA
partners - also known as ASEAN+6.
RECEP (or ASEAN+6), with a combined GDP of US$23 trillion (about 30% of global Hong Kong 5
output), has potential to transform the region into the world’s largest integrated market -
with over 3.4 billion people, or nearly half of the world’s population. New Zealand 5
RECEP is intended to be a modern, comprehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial
economic partnership agreement, which many in Asia now see as the logical
replacement for the US-vetoed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). India 6
The College has begun implementing an ASEAN market entry strategy that includes
targeting two of its national legal markets - Malaysia (Common Law) and Vietnam (Civil LawAsia 6
Law) - and developing a new subject stream, in ASEAN+6 Cross-Border Practice, within
the Applied Law LLM program, to serve the needs of the region’s lawyers. ▄▌

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