Comment on “ASEAN's New Frontiers: Integrating the Newest Members into the ASEAN Economic Community”

Abstract

JEL codes: F55, O19, F13Pomfret (2013) has produced a very interesting and valuable paper. He provides an excellent overview if the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) new frontiers including Cambodia, Lao, Myanmar, and Vietnam (CLMV) and how these newest members try to integrate into ASEAN community. I find this paper very informative and stimulating. This paper provides a good background for a general audience and policymakers who are not specialists on CLMV. Pomfret starts off by providing the background to the dynamics of ASEAN. He provides a brief review of ASEAN including the economic integration process, and then argues that the process was not easy and required a lot of time for negotiations before ending up with a better shape of economic integration. Pomfret shows that ASEAN has moved from a weakly integrated regional economic arrangement into a deep integrated region. He also emphasizes the importance of increasing the role of production networks among the original ASEAN members with East Asia.Pomfret also provides a brief history of CLMV, which is very useful for most readers who are not specialists on CLMV. This brief history also helps readers to walk through the rest of the paper.There are several important findings in this paper. First, drawing a lesson from CLMV is important in helping us not only understand the future scenarios of these four newest ASEAN countries but also for the future expansion of ASEAN. I agree with this point, and I think this is one of the major contributions made by this paper. Second, Pomfret argues that the simplest explanation of the persisting development divide within ASEAN is history. He also emphasizes the importance of the role of the development strategy adopted, market oriented versus nonmarket oriented, and inward looking versus outward looking. There is also a very interesting comparison with the case of eastern European countries. Pomfret argues that catching up with more advanced neighbors was not merely a matter of changing policies, because it still takes time to catch up with countries which are far more advanced. Third, Pomfret also makes a very important point that catching up is a moving target, because the economic integration among the ASEAN6 also accelerates the pace of their development. Finally, Pomfret argues that it is †Correspondence: Muhammad Chatib Basri, LPEM-FEUI, Jl. Salemba Raya no. 4,

Association of Southeast Asian Nations' New Frontiers: Editors' Overview

“…While agreeing with most of Pomfret's analysis and findings, M. Chatib Basri () argues that the political economy story for the CLMV countries is missing. In comparing the economic performances of Vietnam and the Philippines, he suggests that political stability in Vietnam and relative political instability in the Philippines may be one reason why Vietnam has overtaken the Philippines.…”