AsiaDHRRA joined an ASEAN seminar primarily attended by members of the business sector in the region. The objectives of the seminar were to present features of the ASEAN Economic community and to highlight key developments and prospects in ASEAN for trade in good and services, standards and conformance, customs, investment, finance, infrastructure, intellectual property, dispute settlement and FTAs with Dialogue Partners.

The Secretary General of ASEAN, H.E. Ong Keng Yong, in his closing message mentioned that he took the opportunity to invite some CSO representatives in the rather business-sector oriented meeting, to hopefully bring into the private sector’s consciousness the need look at civil society organizations as potential partners in development. He noted that civil society actions help to remind all development stakeholders of the responsibility to ensure that progress redounds and get participation from the more vulnerable sectors in our society.

AFA, AsiaDHRRA, and Institute for Global Justice (IGJ) were the few CSOs to join the seminar. It was an refreshing venue for CSOs to hear about the initiatives of ASEAN to promote private sector dynamism in the region. Likewise, it was interesting to hear the concerns aired by the private sector in doing business in the region. There were many clarificatory exchanges but interesting to note were comments on the constraints of ASEAN in ensuring efficiency of services given the very diverse decision-making processes of its member states. The Charter is expected to help ASEAN be more responsive to private sector demands. How unresponsive members will be penalized given the no sanction provisions in the Charter is equally a challenging area, even for the private sector, to look into.

A luncheon presentation by Dr. V. Aggarwal of the Berkeley APEC Study Center noted that integration can help ASEAN compete in the growing dominance of bilateralism in the global trading system and of China as hub. However, it will require building of strong political will in ASEAN, anchored on a business-driven approach characterized by cross-border exchanges to generate market pressures towards pan-regional rules and the coalescing of interest groups and pan-regional groups towards deeper and broader integration. Along this, the Secretariat is to play a key role in promoting integration. His presentation was very informative and brought up many challenges for the business sectos and for ASEAN. Corollary to his note on supranational rules would be the ceding of national governments’ sovereignty which is a contentious area for most CSOs.