Building the ASEAN Economic Community: Challenges and Opportunities for Myanmar

In recent years, ASEAN has been accelerating its efforts to establish the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. As a member of ASEAN, Myanmar has a mandate to implement a number of policy reforms, as agreed to in the AEC Blueprint. Key reforms include trade liberalization and facilitation in accordance with the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA), investment liberalization and facilitation as set forth under the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA), services liberalization to comply with the terms of ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS), infrastructure development in support of projects such as the ASEAN Highway Network (AHN) and Singapore-Kunming Rail Link (SKRL), and so on. At the same time, since the inauguration of the Thein Sein administration in March 2011, Myanmar has been transforming itself to a democratic country with more liberal economic policies including the elimination of dual exchange rates and the introduction of the new foreign investment law. Both of these regional and domestic efforts are critical for Myanmar to seize the moment to capture the benefits of being a fully-integrated member of a regional and global economic community. _____________________________________________________________________________