AEC Roadmap For Deepening Economic Integration And Resilience - Tengku Zafrul
KUALA LUMPUR, May 23 (Bernama) -- The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Strategic Plan 2026-2030 will outline the framework for the regional economic integration agenda and enhance its agility and resilience against external shocks.
The AEC, which will be adopted by ASEAN leaders on Monday, will be part of the overall ASEAN Community Vision 2045 (ACV 2045).
Investment, Trade, and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said the plan is a comprehensive roadmap incorporating six strategic goals, 44 objectives and 192 strategic measures.
“The plan could not be timelier, representing ASEAN’s commitment to deepening regional economic integration. This serves as a tool towards building its agility and resilience against exogenous shocks,” he said at the AEC Strategic Plan 2026-2030 pre-media briefing here today.
Tengku Zafrul said the AEC Strategic Plan aspires to enhance intra-ASEAN trade, as well as increase the interconnectedness as a single market for goods, services and investments, to spur the region’s competitiveness.
The AEC Strategic Plan spells out ASEAN’s readiness towards reforms, enhanced connectivity, and innovation anchored on principles of inclusivity and sustainability.
“These will strengthen ASEAN’s industrial attractiveness and capacity through productivity and resource efficiency, while also attracting green financing and investments.
“The AEC Strategic Plan will also emphasise the establishment of a forward-looking digital economic framework and an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven operating landscape, premised on the development of digital connectivity and infrastructure,” he said.
Tengku Zafrul said the AEC Strategic Plan strongly emphasises ASEAN’s market openness and willingness to engage with external partners, even while parts of the global economy are becoming more inward-looking.
“Continued engagement is not only with our traditional markets and dialogue partners, but also with new and emerging markets to strengthen ASEAN’s macroeconomic resilience,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tengku Zafrul stated that the world has made significant progress in the past decade, with markets becoming progressively liberalised, nations and economies trading goods and services, and many parts of the world generally prospering.
However, he said protectionist decisions by a single major market look set to upend all that, which could also deal a debilitating blow to the concept of globalisation as we know it.
Amid this challenge, Tengku Zafrul said ASEAN must try its best to align its common interests and respond in a more coordinated manner to carefully navigate the current complexities of global trade.
He also said that the group is confident that ASEAN will continue to be a region where investments and trade thrive.
“We are reasonably sure that ASEAN is well on its way to becoming the world’s fourth-largest economic bloc by 2030. To ensure those projections remain true in the years to come, ASEAN needs to organise and coordinate itself better.
“We also need to stick to our ASEAN principles of centrality, neutrality and non-alignment as we navigate the choppy waters ahead, whether individually or as a bloc,” said the minister.
ASEAN will also remain steadfast to its values of economic and supply chain complementarities, while ensuring Inclusivity and Sustainability – the theme of our chairmanship – remain at the centre of its priorities, said Tengku Zafrul.
-- BERNAMA