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Has the time of ASEAN's utility as a trading bloc come and gone? Indonesia asks, what's the point?
The 10-nation ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) trading bloc once had high hopes of becoming something like the European Community when charter members Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand first signed on in 1967.
Today, such dreams are long forgotten with a former Indonesian foreign minister now asking what is the point of it all, other than attending regional summits to issue feel-good communiques. That view is also shared and reinforced by public opinion polls.
Ex-minister Marty Nartelegawa's book "Does ASEAN Matter? A View From Within" accuses the bloc using its shared non-interference policy as a way to side-step any and all problems the bloc faces jointly and severally.
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As circumstances change, it may be time to widen the conceptual scope of the intra-Asia trade
No one, but unsung visionaries 20 years ago thought Asian goods would go through the Suez Canal for delivery to the east coast of North America. Twenty years ago only a few thought of doing the same via Panama.
Today it is commonplace and unremarkable, and these east-west trade routes have been long established. Perhaps it is time to think of the sprawling, high volume, low value intra-Asia trade as ready for such radical change.
Drewry, London's venerable maritime research house, now sees the intra-Asia trade as spanning a global surface from the Middle East to New Zealand. Why not a step further? What if one were to enlarge it to include east Africa and the west coast of South America?
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Few benefit from a trade war, but intra-Asia shipping stands to gain from a Sino-American spat
While most agree trade wars serve no one, there are some who question whether a Sino-American trade dispute benefits the intra-Asia shipping.
That's because there is too little high-value trade in truly intra-Asian trade lanes, and any diminution of US-Chinese business, is likely to lead to greater volumes flowing within or exported from of the Asia-Pacific region.
With the spirit of protectionism alive in the US - and a countervailing pushback in China - there is now pressure to resolve the old problem of each Asian nation making its neighbour's cross-border trade more difficult than it should be.
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Making intra-Asia trade pay looks promising over time, but all indications show it will take time
To make money in the high-volume, low-value intra-Asia trade, one's business must be everything the intra-Asia trade is not - quick, clean, and efficient.
Hope emerges from this otherwise bleak picture from the phenomenal growth of the e-commerce and the popularity of online shopping among Asians.
One must also factor in the near disappearance of absolute poverty in the developing world, bringing with it a demand for reefer cargo, which signals a critical mass of affluent consumers.
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Intra Asia Trade Specialists |
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