would malaysians be open to an ASEAN union much like the European Union? with the emergence of china, along with south korea and japan in the north, with india in the west and australia/new zealand in the south.. do you think an ASEAN union would be a good idea? We will not be able to compete with the rest of the world as tiny little states in my opinion

Isn't malaysia in ASEAN union?

Sounds good on paper but when it comes to implementing a common market many problems arise.

For instance even after agreeing to AFTA, Malaysia still impose high tariffs on cars made in other ASEAN countries to protect her fledgling car companies.
Govt officials say Malaysia is the only ASEAN country to develop cars from scratch so we need more time to be competitive with cars made by multinationals in other ASEAN countries.

Asean union? supernovasp is right when he said they're in ASEAN, but i think you're trying to say the South East Asian version of the EU.

i think Malaysia and the Philippines and Indonesia are either the promoters or founders of most of SEAsian union. However in case of an actual Union i think richer nations, especially much smaller in population would be less likely to promote it because that means it would drag their economies down, much like Spain and other west european and now recently the east euro nation to Britain.

I think kermit is saying we should have a completely common market like the EU to make ASEAN countries appear more attractive to investors.

That is what ASEAN has been trying to achieve but ASEAN differs from EU in not requiring richer members to provide financial aid to unwealthy ones.

I think eventually it may be a possibility but that will have to wait til all ASEAN nations have relatively stable, even stagnant economies that have peaked. This is how the EU came about, countries like France, Germany, Italy etc.. could no longer grow as they had reached their peak. Only way to continue growth and become a more global influence in the world would either require a return to imperialism, colonialism and conquest for more land and resources. OR... join with their European brothers as a federation that can rival the US.

It will take some time for Vietnam, East Timor, Cambodia, Mayanmar, Laos to even get to where Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia are today, due to closed societies and economies set forth by repressive regimes.. so we will need to invest in those countries and help them develope their infrastructure. The most viable members today of an ASEAN Unified State would be Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia.

Vietnam's getting there, we're experiencing the highest growth in Southeast Asia (actuallly Singapore has the highest growth, but the whole nation is just a city, if you compare the growth between Singapore and Ho Chi Minh city, then the growth of Ho Chi Minh city is much bigger than Singapore city)! We're reaching 8.5% growth this year, however it can be much more after we're admitted into the WTO

A post about ASEAN... yeeehaaa!!!
The first countries to integrate would be Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.
Malaysia would also link with Indonesia and the Phillippines.
Thailand is currently the alpha country in the mainland. BUt you sure are right abt Vietnam. It's going places for sure.
Even now, I think our collective awareness of an ASEAN identity is more than what it was say 10 years ago. Methinks closer integration is inevitable, though to have open borders like the EU would be years more in coming.

BruneiCambodiaIndonesiaLaosMalaysia

MyanmarPhilippinesSingaporeThailandVietnam

though growth might be good, it doesn't mean it's all the way positive. i do admitre that vietnam is breaking it's ultra communist econimic binds. i hope for its growth. just don't turn out like other post communist ones.

maybe some day they can invade Australia and sack them for their hot babes and Fosters Beer!

malaysia has hotter babes than australia :P

Hmm, it's really hard for me to post a comment in this thread, I admit [but I want to ^ ^;] ....

I don't read politics and regional welfare so I am not well-versed when it comes to this kind of issue. So when this question [refer to thread title] was posed, I was rather taken aback because all these while I thought that the 10 SEA countries ARE united under ASEAN, and I thought that ASEAN is a union. = \

Anyways, like what malaccan said, ASEAN seems to be more integrated than it was in the past years. Current events, even disasters, have brought us closer as a region. But there is a point I catch in this topic: eventhough we are united under the ASEAN abbreviation, I still feel that we are running our economies more like separate little states than a region as a whole.

Nevertheless, with summits such as the East Asian Summit and the ASEAN+Japan or ASEAN+3 Summit, I think they will contribute more to the togethernesss of the Southeast Asian region. And I think more social events need to be held to further encourage interaction between the people of this region. ^__~

Imagine if the austronesian lands still looked like this photo of "Sundaland" from before the last ice age ended, that is a continental landmass larger then India! Australia also is larger in this photo, and more importantly.. alot closer. So the malay people likely would have taken that land as well, which means an ASEAN nation larger then the US

ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/GLOBE_DEM/picture...Lsealevelsm.jpg

Man WTF ?

Ya. Foreigners including Malaysians are investing in Vietnam like crazy.

in america we call it sarcasm

The Prime Minister said nearly all tariffs on ASEAN made cars will be eliminated by 2008

yes malaysian and australian babes are hottttt !!!!!

In order to be successful, ASEAN content requirement should be at least 95% instead of only 40% currently.

Such a low percentage would give foreign companies access to the ASEAN market without having to manufacture the most expensive components of their products in this region.

For instance, a car maker like Peugeot can just do final assembly here while importing all their engines from Europe or China and still enjoy the ASEAN preferential treatment.

Raising the requirement to 95% will force all major car makers to cast their engine blocks in an ASEAN country if they want to be price competitive.

The casting of engine blocks is the most desirable part of car making. We must make sure that non-member countries don't get this benefit at our expense.

If multinationals want to sell their cars here, they must give all the manufacturing benefits to this region instead of only making the cheap parts here.

ooohh..

troll-

Mods, can we ban this moron?

sure

PETALING JAYA: The National Automotive Policy (NAP) is to ensure the domestic motor industry can become more competitive and export-oriented, even as globalisation makes conditions more difficult, industry sources say.

Hence, a package of grants and incentives is offered to companies in the domestic automotive sector. The carrot is also extended to the multinational corporations (MNCs) that will set up, or which already have, manufacturing plants in thecountry.

The incentives will only distinguish those that make a significant economic contribution. Such contribution could be interpreted to mean the level of new investments, number of workers to be employed and amount of exports, they added.

Hence, the Government is willing to give grants and approved (import) permits or APs to even the foreign-owned manufacturers.

The Government is keen that the car companies set up regional manufacturing plants here, and recognises the trend for their plants to specialise in one or two models only. A company like BMW could, for instance, manufacture its 3-series model here for export throughout Asean, and it could import other models for car buyers here, they said.

To facilitate this, the Government reduced the Asean common effective preferential tariff or CEPT import duty to 5%.

“Malaysia has complied with the Asean CEPT scheme with effect from today,” they said.

This exposes the domestic industry to more intense competition but it is necessary in the overall scheme of things.

The two national car companies – Proton and Perodua – are expected to improve the quality of their products, for which they will be entitled to various grants from the Government. The two companies will be required to raise their volume of production and exports.