ASEAN and Member States: Transformation and Integration

Abstract

Over the course of ASEAN’s 50 years of existence, the ASEAN region has been transformed from a relatively poor region in the 1960s into a robustly growing region of middle-income to high-income countries. The ASEAN Member States (AMSs) have transitioned from being largely exporters of primary products into regional and global exporters of commodities, manufactures, and services. The region has experienced an almost consistently rising share of global output, exports, and imports, and secular but inconsistent global foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, beating out other prominent regional groupings in the developing world (see Figure 1.1). The pace and consistency of the rise of ASEAN’s shares in global output and international merchandise trade, as well as the secular rise of ASEAN’s share of global FDI inflows, are indicative of ASEAN as an economic success story vis-à-vis other regional associations in the developing world.