The ASEAN Statistical Community and the Role of External Partners

Abstract

Having started as a security-oriented cooperation mechanism in the late 1960s struggling with considerable economic, political, and cultural heterogeneity, ASEAN has come a long way to establish itself as an example of an enduring and resilient regional community unparalleled in the developing world. In later decades, market-driven economic integration has taken over ASEAN integration, accelerated by globalization and the spread of regional production networks. This has in turn facilitated the slow but steady institutionalization of the ASEAN regional architecture we see today.