OPINION

Thailand amid Asean economic integration

News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 11/08/2017

» The first year and a half of the Asean Community has transpired not with a bang but a whimper. Thailand's role in it has been correspondingly uneventful. The first 18 months of the Asean Economic Community (AEC), one of three pillars together with the Asean Political-Security Community and Asean Socio-Cultural Community, witnessed no fundamental or qualitative differences from trade and investment patterns prior to its introduction. If the AEC is to work out as intended, it has to be reshaped and reoriented from traditional lenses to new realities based on intra-regional investments in tandem with global value chains.