ASEAN INTEGRATION 20151. What is ASEAN Integration? According to the blueprint, our country will enter a state of Regional Economic Integration in other words, it is the integration of the economies with 10 member countries of ASEAN in order to achieve its aim of establishing an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). ASEAN Integration is aimed at improving and accelerating the economy of the regional bloc. It hopes to establish an Asean single market and production base characterized by free flow of goods, free flow of services, free flow of investment, freer flow of capital, and free flow of skilled labor.2. Member Countries of the ASEAN Integration Brunei Darussalam Cambodia Indonesia Laos Malaysia Myanmar Singapore Thailand Vietnam Philippines

3. How will you prepare for the ASEAN Integration? If I am a businessman right now, an entrepreneur or agripreneur, I will start franchising because can help on preparing by solving 3 critical issues that every business needs to address. First, Building your brand, next is Upgrade and make your systems as efficient as you can and lastly, Look beyond the Philippines. The mindset of Philippine businessmen and managers must change, by looking at ASEAN as their domestic market while keeping the United States, Europe and China as export markets. Strategies should correspondingly change for the Philippines to meet the challenges of businesses from other ASEAN countries locating in the Philippines and to seize the opportunities provided by the huge market in other ASEAN countries. The change will only come about if Philippine business, government and the academe work together not only to bring about this change of mindset but also to enhance the skills and competencies of Philippine human resources so we can better compete in the era of ASEAN integration.4. Is the Philippines ready for the ASEAN Integration? Based from my own opinion, The Philippines has a different and unequal economy today. our country is not yet ready because of some issues in our education like the calendar shifting then the issues on economic and agricultural sectors wherein the investments has been declined. While, according to University of the Philippines Professor Dr. Rene Ofreneo, the Philippines is currently suffering from an imbalanced economy something that is highly dependent on the remittances of the overseas Filipino workers and the Business Process Outsourcing industry. How can we be ready for regional integration when we do not even have the industrial policy in support of agri-industrialization to calibrate trade policies and negotiations? Ofreneo said.