If all goes as planned, by 2015 the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will dramatically expand the freedom of their 600 million citizens to travel freely within each other’s borders, particularly skilled workers. It is a process that has taken place largely out of the public eye as Asean bureaucrats, based in Jakarta, have slogged through endless bureaucratic and other problems in relations between countries whose economic disparities are striking – say Singapore, which is ranked in the top 20 in the world by nominal gross domestic product per capita, and Burma, one of the lowest.
Asean's Growing Integration
Asean's Growing Integration
Asean's Growing Integration
If all goes as planned, by 2015 the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will dramatically expand the freedom of their 600 million citizens to travel freely within each other’s borders, particularly skilled workers. It is a process that has taken place largely out of the public eye as Asean bureaucrats, based in Jakarta, have slogged through endless bureaucratic and other problems in relations between countries whose economic disparities are striking – say Singapore, which is ranked in the top 20 in the world by nominal gross domestic product per capita, and Burma, one of the lowest.