The AEC Blueprint 2025 calls for efforts to engage the business sector and community-based organisations more effectively, both to provide easier access to official information on implementation, and to obtain timely feedback on policies.

It is important for the private sector to understand the various avenues that are available for their engagement with ASEAN. The ASEAN Secretariat has developed initiatives to enable and strengthen private sector engagement by following the framework of “Inform-Consult-Involve.”

Area 1: Easier access to information for the private sector

Access to information on developments of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is crucial to enhance public-private sector engagement. The ASEAN Secretariat has developed a bimonthly bulletin called “ASEAN for Business,” which aims to provide the private sector with key information on various initiatives under the AEC as well as the profile and key focus areas of some ASEAN sectoral bodies.

Area 2: Enhancing consultation with the private sector

Rules of Procedure for Private Sector Engagement under the ASEAN Economic Community (RoP)

To ensure that the engagement between the public and private sector can be done in a transparent and effective manner, ASEAN has developed the Rules of Procedure for Private Sector Engagement under the ASEAN Economic Community (RoP). The RoP provides comprehensive explanation on the criteria for engagement, levels of engagement, types of engagement, administrative procedures of the engagement, private sector engagement mechanism, and response mechanism to the issues/recommendations raised by the private sector.

ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Dialogue

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Dialogue, initiated in October 2018, was developed as a platform to enhance the quality of engagement in which the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN BAC), as the apex private sector body of ASEAN, and other regional business councils and associations can intensively discuss with the ASEAN Secretariat on how to streamline their recommendations before surfacing them to the ASEAN sectoral bodies so that their engagements can become more effective and productive. The AEC Dialogue is scheduled twice a year in Q2 and Q4 of each respective year.

Area 3: Strengthening the involvement of the private sector through public-private sector projects

Developing public-private initiatives (project collaborations) is also crucial in strengthening public-private sector engagement. For example, the ASEAN Secretariat has facilitated a project between the ASEAN-BAC and the ASEAN Coordinating Committee on MSME (ACCMSME) called the ASEAN Mentorship for Entrepreneurs Network (AMEN), which aims to institute a system that will help MSMEs access the 3Ms (i.e., Money, Market and Mentorship) so as to scale up their operations and improve their profitability and sustainability.

Moving forward, the ASEAN Secretariat, in cooperation with the ASEAN-BAC and the ACCMSME, is currently developing the ASEAN Business Sentiment Study 2020 to provide valuable insights to policymakers on the ASEAN indigenous enterprises’ general sentiment on ASEAN economic integration, as well as issues pertaining to investment, trade and services.