ASEAN Leaders Launch Single Market Community

Thirteen years after mooting the idea, Southeast Asian leaders on Sunday formally created a unified economic community in a region more populous and diverse than both the European Union and North America, and one that hopes to compete with China and India.

"ASEAN will now attempt to complete measures unfinished in an eight-year plan by the end of next year after missing the end-2015 goal", President Benigno Aquino III said. Much remains to be done and the region faces many challenges in finishing. "They have radicalized Islamists... and in a few cases, they also have less developed tools to track and arrest terrorists". It will also remain free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

The leaders also signed yesterday a Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children, with which they seek to combat this scourge more effectively, including a greater protection to victims. "These "behind the border" barriers... are a key impediment slowing down the process of integration", he said.

Simultaneously, the leaders endorsed "ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together", which charts the path for community building over the next 10 years.

The China-led RCEP is a 16-nation trade bloc which includes the ASEAN plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

President Benigno Aquino III said he made sure, when he attended his last Asean Leaders' Summit in Malaysia to thank all the neighbors who were quick to come to the Philippines' aid right after super typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) struck in November 2013.

The community, known by its acronym AEC, is comprised of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It has a combined region of 630 million with a growing middle class.

The ACFTA has contributed to the rapid development of trade and investment between ASEAN and China.

The removal of non-tariff barriers to enable the free-trade area to run fully fledged operations and speed up the creation of a single market toward deeper economic integration is quite an uphill task in itself.

The ASEAN secretary-general is directed to monitor and report the progress of implementation to the ASEAN summit annually.

Obama, in his remarks, reiterated his call for a halt to land reclamation activities in the South China Sea to reduce tensions. The other document is a ten-year action plan.

The new ASEAN-U. S. Strategic Partnership outlined five priority areas of engagement.

"The majority had agreed to a fair, peaceful and just resolution based on global laws", Aquino said.

"But the events of recent days and weeks have cast a shadow over us all", he said. "It is a consistent Chinese position to firmly oppose the militarization of the South China Sea".