ASEAN Most Ready to Make Economic Liberalization

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Director Wimboh Santoso, an Indonesian national, said Southeast Asian countries who were members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were considered the most successful in facing economic liberalization. Indonesia, the ASEAN country with the largest population, he added, was considered to have the most powerful competitiveness.

At the 21st ASEAN Summit in 2012, the heads of ASEAN countries agreed that the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) would be enacted on December 31, 2014, instead of in mid-2015 as originally planned. According to Wimboh, who commented on the matter last week, the readiness of ASEAN economic liberalization was evident from economic growth in the region. "The rate of economic growth in the ASEAN region has reached five percent on average," he said.