Why Thailand is crazy over AEC

Kavi Chongkittavorn

BANGKOK: -- These days in Thailand, not a single day passes by without AEC (Asean
Economic Community) on the headlines. The billion-baht worth of AEC campaign is
zeroed in on with one single issue: to prepare the country and Thai people to
compete with other nine members in the Asean Economic Community by 2015.
Under the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the AEC platform has
been accorded a top priority and morphed into a major populist policy. Any
reference that has the word "AEC" in it would certainly get the government funding.
That explains why there are hundreds of AEC seminars in the past several months.

At the Asean foreign ministerial meeting over the weekend in Phnom Penh, the
Asean leaders still struggled with the date when the Asean Community (AC) would
start. Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, the Cambodian chair, told the meeting that
the AC should begin on 1st of January 2015 not on 31st December as agreed by the
Asean economic ministers in their earlier meeting. The key reason was quite simple
- a delay of 364 days would allow most of the Asean members additional time and
room to implement remaining measures and prepare for the AC arrival with better
preparedness. The majority of Asean members seemed to prefer the last day of
2015 as they thought the AC is a process that would continue beyond 2015. Rightly
so, during the summit on Sunday, Prime Minister Hun Sen decided to go for 31st
December as the date.

Within Asean, Thailand has been the only Asean member with a comprehensive
plan to prepare for the 2015 deadline. At the end of October, the government has
adopted the eight-point strategic plan prepared by the National Economic and
Social Development Council. The plan outlines the strength and weakness of
Thailand's overall capacity to engage the one Asean community. The Thai
concerned officials drafted the strategic plan mainly from documental sources such
as the Asean Charter, hundreds of agreements and blueprints, the Master Plan of
Asean Connectivity as well as data and information collected from all government
agencies related to all the three pillars - economic, political/security and
social/culture. Judging from the plan, the Yingluck government will be spending a lot
more money in months to come.

The strategies focus on eight priorities: the ability to compete in trade in goods and
services as well as investment, the development of quality of life and social safety

net, the infrastructural and logistic development, the human resource development,
regulatory reform, promotion of awareness of Asean, strengthening the country's
national security and the capacity building for key Thai cities to link up with the rest
of Asean.

Deep down, these strategies reveal extremely high anxieties as well as the lack of
confidence of the country's ability when Asean becomes a single production base.
They fear of the unknown consequences. Doubtless, the narrative of the day is how
to compete with other Asean countries instead of collective spirit to promote the
grouping's bargain power. General speaking, Thailand as the Asean's second largest
economy would benefit from the AEC because of its location in the mainland
Southeast Asia and dynamic private sector. Indeed, Asean is the number one
market for absorbing around 23 per cent of Thailand's total exports. Somehow,
there is a lingering fear that the government, the SMEs sector and the Thai people
are not ready for the borderless Asean.

As far as the government agencies are concerned, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of

Education and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are the three key driving forces. Kudos
must go to the first because in the past two years for implanting the AEC slogan in
the Thai psyche due to the non-stop bombardments from commerce officials and
advertisements.

The Ministry of Commerce has the largest chunk of overall budget. It also knows
very well all the serious problems the country is confronting in implementing
various AEC measures, especially on liberalizing the services sector. It is not
surprising that there are a lot of spins about the country's state of preparedness and
readiness.

It must be noted that the Ministry of Education has turned the AEC campaign into
"Let learn English" campaign, which is the major component of its long-term
strategy. It has an elaborated plan to quickly provide English education to the Thai
people both in urban and rural areas and equipped vocational students with skills
and language ability that can communicate with other Asean countries.

Throughout Thailand, the AEC has now become the main justification to study more
English. There is a surge of English language schools in provincial towns. Some

regional universities in KhonKaen and UbonRatchathani teach languages in Asean

countries including Bahasa Indonesia, Burmese, Vietnamese.

Amazingly, nobody really tackles the real issue of the country's rotten education
system, which has produced walking human tape-recorders than the much needed
innovative minds. Now, all the Thai citizens are encouraged to learn and speak
English to prepare the Asean community while the education plan continues with
the status quo. Currently, at any given day, hundreds of officials from district,
provincial and national levels are taking part in English language training and the
so-called Asean awareness campaign.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working hard to maintain the country's Asean
profile which is not easy under the leadership and working style of Yingluck
government. Within the country, the ministry has to constantly inform and remind
the public that the AEC is only one of the three AC pillars. The other two political/security and social/culture - are equally important. All three must progress
in tandem to transform the borderless Asean.

Sad but true, on the social and cultural pillar, Ministry of Culture so far has not been
unable to catch up or get the necessary budget for its own projects.

There is an urgent need to educate the Thai people about their immediate
neighbors about the challenges posed by the AC. One of the ministry's long
standing flagship projects to establish a museum that tells the history of Asean and
its key players could not obtain necessary funding. Asean was found in LaemThaen,
Bang Saen, Chon Buri in August 1967.

After the Asean Charter was adopted, Thailand has been at the forefront to promote
the people-oriented Asean community ensuring that the voices of at the grassroots
are heard. Dr Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary General of Asean, whose term is ending in
six weeks, has also helped to channel the inputs of civil society organizations.
Thailand has become the most open-minded, along with Indonesia, when it comes
to human rights and democracy. At the summit last week, the Philippines returned
to its root of liberalism by stating that unless there were changes in the draft Asean
Declaration of Asean Human Rights, Manila would opt out completely, prompting
Indonesia to come to a rescue with a proposal to include the preamble of UN

Universal Human Rights Declaration in the working document, which will be read by
the Asean chair.

When 2015 arrives, the Thai hyperbole over the AEC will certainly fade away. For
one thing, there will be no budget to spoil any more. After all the efforts, real or
imagine, are focused on the preparedness for 2015. None has yet to stress what
Thailand would be liked in the post 2015.