The ASEAN Economic Community: Prospects for Accelerating Indonesian Economic Growth

The region-based integration initiative of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) called the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) offers a bright future for the region. The AEC blueprint has promised to bring prosperity through a single market and production base, highly competitive and equitable development in the economic region, and a region fully integrated into the global economy. The core mission of the AEC is to diminish barriers to trade and to facilitate the flow of goods, thus providing better opportunities for international trade and investment from non-ASEAN countries. Even though there are still many challenges to economic integration, the benefits from the free flow of goods, services, investments, and professional labor make ASEAN members optimistic that this integration will generate economic growth. One concern might be that the AEC will create an unequal dispersion of benefits among ASEAN members because of the dramatic variation in their individual economic situations. This report will outline how, since its establishment, the AEC has delivered a positive outcome for Indonesia.