Despite clear aspirations by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to create an effective and transparent framework to facilitate movements among skilled professionals within the ASEAN by December 2015, progress has been slow and uneven. This report examines the challenges ASEAN member states face in achieving the goal of greater mobility for the highly skilled, including hurdles in recognizing professional qualifications, opening up access to certain jobs, and a limited willingness by professionals to move due to perceived cultural, language, and socioeconomic differences. The cost of these barriers is staggering and could reduce the region's competitiveness in the global market. This report launches a multiyear effort by ADB and the Migration Policy Institute to better understand the issues and develop strategies to gradually overcome the problems. It offers a range of policy recommendations that have been discussed among experts in a high-level expert meeting, taking into account best practices locally and across the region.

This report examines the challenges the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states face under the ASEAN Economic Community in achieving the goal of greater mobility for the highly skilled, including hurdles in recognizing professional qualifications, opening up access to certain jobs, and a limited willingness by professionals to move due to perceived cultural, language, and socioeconomic differences. The cost of these barriers is staggering and could reduce the region's competitiveness. This report offers a range of policy recommendations, taking into account best practices locally and across the region.

One of the primary objectives of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), established in 2015, was to boost skilled labor mobility within the region. This insightful book takes stock of the existing trends and patterns of skilled labor migration in the ASEAN. It endeavors to identify the likely winners and losers from the free movement of natural persons within the region through counterfactual policy simulations. Finally, it discusses existing issues and obstacles through case studies, as well as other sectoral examples.

The movement of people in Southeast Asia is an issue of increasing importance. Countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are now the origin of 8 percent of the world's migrants. These countries host only 4 percent of the world's migrants but intra-regional migration has turned Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand into regional migration hubs that are home to 6.5 million ASEAN migrants. However, significant international and domestic labor mobility costs limit the ability of workers to change firms, sectors, and geographies in ASEAN. This report takes an innovative approach to estimate the costs for workers to migrate internationally. Singapore and Malaysia have the lowest international labor mobility costs in ASEAN while workers migrating to Myanmar and Vietnam have the highest costs. Singapore and Malaysia's more developed migration systems are a key reason for their lower labor mobility costs. How easily workers can move to take advantage of new opportunities is important in determining how they fare under the increased economic integration planned for ASEAN. To study this question, the report simulates how worker welfare is affected by enhanced trade integration under different scenarios of labor mobility costs. Region-wide, worker welfare would be 14 percent higher if barriers to mobility were reduced for skilled workers, and an additional 29 percent if barriers to mobility were lowered for all workers. Weaknesses in migration systems increase international labor mobility costs, but policy reforms can help. Destination countries should work toward systems that are responsive to economic needs and consistent with domestic policies. Sending countries should balance protections for migrant workers with the needs of economic development.

On 28 July 2008, the ASEAN Studies Centre and the Regional Economic Studies Programme, both of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung organized a roundtable on The ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint. The brainstorming session gathered Southeast Asian experts from the region to discuss the AEC Blueprint, which ASEANs leaders had adopted at their summit meeting in November 2007, and the prospects of any obstacles to its implementation by the target year, 2015. The roundtable started with a progress report on the AEC Blueprint given by S. Pushpanathan, Principal Director of Economic Integration and Finance, ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta. Thereafter, the sessions examined the various aspects of the Blueprint tackling the non-tariff barriers, designing a comprehensive ASEAN Investment Agreement, a regional framework for competition policy, the role of infrastructure development in economic integration, the importance of international production networks in economic integration, etc.

This book investigates long-term development issues for members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It finds that with the proper policy mix—including domestic structural reforms and bold initiatives for regional integration—ASEAN has the potential to reach by 2030 the average quality of life enjoyed today in advanced economies and to fulfill its aspirations to become a resilient, inclusive, competitive, and harmonious (RICH) region. Key challenges moving forward are to enhance macroeconomic and financial stability, support equitable growth, promote competitiveness and innovation, and protect the environment. Overcoming these challenges to build a truly borderless economic region implies eliminating remaining barriers to the flow of goods, services, and production factors; strengthening competitiveness and the institutional framework; and updating some governing principles. But ASEAN should not merely copy the European Union. It must maintain its flexibility and pragmatism without creating a bloated regional bureaucracy. The study’s main message is that through closer integration, ASEAN can form a partnership for achieving shared prosperity in the region and around the globe.

The Japan Fund for Prosperous and Resilient Asia and the Pacific (JFPR) is a partnership between the Government of Japan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It helps people move above the poverty threshold and toward sustainable prosperity and resilience. This guide illustrates the requirements stipulated in the JFPR Implementation Guidelines. It provides best practices, examples, tips, and suggestions to help JFPR users and clients tailor proposals to the fund’s requirements to ensure smooth project processing and efficient implementation.