ASEAN Services Integration Report: A Joint Report by the ASEAN Secretariat and the World Bank

Implementing Agencies: East Asia and Pacific Region, the World Bank and the ASEAN Secretariat.
Time: 2015

Foreword:

"With the services sector’s increasingly significant contributions to the regional economy, supporting about half of its combined GDP and 60 percent of its total foreign direct investment inflows in recent years, ASEAN fully recognizes the opportunities for further growth and employment that the services sector creates. The liberalization of the services sector in the region has traditionally focused on two areas, specifically, the promotion of trade in services as well as the promotion of flows of skilled labor through the establishment of Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) for professional services. Under the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS), ASEAN has made concerted efforts to enhance cooperation among Member States, setting specific targets for the process of liberalizing and integrating the services sector in the region to enable the free flow of services envisioned in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).

This Report provides an in-depth assessment of the role of services trade in ASEAN’s economic integration, analyzing the framework of ASEAN’s services policies and the impact of services integration in the region. Aside from identifying prevailing challenges and potential opportunities, the Report provides a useful reference on ASEAN’s progress and puts forward key recommendations to enhance regional trade in services.

The formal launch of the ASEAN Community and the endorsement by the Leaders of ASEAN of the forward-looking and ambitious ASEAN Community Vision 2025 this year will create greater impetus to further broaden and deepen ASEAN’s services integration process with its benefits ultimately redounding to the people-oriented, people-centred ASEAN Community."

The related document is attached below here