Thanks Scott, some good points here. I might even take them and write another blog post about this…with proper credit, of course. 🙂

Here in Malaysia the other day, I was chatting with a friend about AEC’s launch in 2015 and the single biggest factor against Thailand we kept coming up against (a country we both love) is peoples’ lack of English skills. Plain and simple in this day and age and in this region it’s sink or speak English.

I owned/ran a tour company offering experiences in SE Asia for many years and one small example is the brutal English skills of English-speaking guides. Guides in other countries we operated in were way better. Once the borders open watch for lots of foreigners working in hotels and Thais wonder why they lost their jobs.

Another interesting point about Myanmar labourers is the fact that just a few months ago the government was proposing sending them all back home so they’d stop taking jobs away from Thais. Hardly preparing for the future that’s right around the corner.

Keep up the good work Greg!

Since when did life become all about chasing the dollar and economic growth, everyone talk about it like it is the holy grail.

I bet if there was a referendum in the EU whether too stay in or not all the wealthy countries would bail out, after all I have not seen England too eager to throw their lot in and join up.

So the question will be who benefits? And are the 'benefits' being defined correctly, and does the general population want these 'benefits'?

It is nice to see the economic growth numbers on a computer screen but how many 7 day per week 12 hour day future Cambodian factory workers sleeping in a bed in split shifts are better off than they were fishing the Mekong and growing a private vegetable/rice patch and spending time with their family?

For one, it will be very difficult to break old habits, especially when there is money under the table. Government officials and their pals get used to being in the middle and accepting the bribes that grease the wheels. They will fight back in one way or another because that's a real threat to their livelihood. Let's take a Myanmar example to illustrate that point. In Myanmar the tax on imported cars is somewhere in the ridiculous range (seriously like 1000%), so some clever people tied to the government will "import" Japanese cars and switch out the Toyota symbols for ones of a "Myanmar car" company, thereby skirting the import tax. Now they can sell cars at a higher margin since everyone else has to pay the import tax. I guarantee those guys don't want to give up that business and they will do everything they can to put loopholes in the laws so that they can continue their position. Habits are hard to break.

There will also be resentments as workers move around the ASEAN countries to get jobs. Look at the negative stereotypes that Western Europeans have towards Eastern Europeans as the latter take up many of the "low-skilled" jobs. Expect this to happen as the labor force becomes more flexible and people get annoyed that there is someone else out there that is willing to do their job cheaper.

Of course, overall, more trade equals better economies. So, yes, things will improve. How much, I'm not sure (especially in Myanmar where the majority of investment will be in non-renewable resources), but in general it is a good thing.