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We will have the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by
January 2015 or just 14 months from now. This is a great opportunity for many
of us in the region to experience freer movement of goods and services or
people.
While some people see more threats than opportunities in
regional free trade like the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), the threats are too
often exaggerated. Free trade means local producers and manufacturers will have
(a) wider sources of production inputs that are cheaper and/or better quality,
and (b) wider and plentier buyers and consumers as price-distorting schemes
like import tariffs are removed or significantly reduced among members of an
FTA.
Thus, if local carinderias and food shops can have wider
sources of cheaper poultry, pork, rice and vegetable products, then their
consumers and clients, mostly poor people like jeepney and taxi drivers,
ordinary office workers, will benefit in the form of cheaper food prices.
The local producers of poultry, pork, rice and vegetable
products will be challenged to improve their production and hence, sell cheaper
too. They will compete product per product, not only here but in other ASEAN
member-countries.
While free trade of goods is the more important aspect of
an economic union like AEC, concerns on education, healthcare and other sectors
are also important. Economic and business competitiveness is mainly a product
of a competitive educational system. Internationally traded goods and services
are embodiment of the skills and efficiencies of the people who produce them.
On Tuesday, November 19, 2013, Publicus Asia, Inc. will
sponsor a big forum on Education Competitiveness in an ASEAN
Integrated Era, to be held at Edsa Shangrila Hotel, Ortigas. The goal
of the forum is to explore the various opportunities and challenges in the
higher education system of the country as the AEC is fast approaching.
There is a good line up of high profile speakers. Like UP
President Alfredo Pascual, Ateneo de Manila University President Jose Ramon
Villarin, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairperson Patricia Licuanan, Management
Association of the Philippines (MAP) President Melito Salazar, Assistant
Secretary of ASEAN Affairs Teresita Barsana, Cong. Roman Romulo, Chairman of
the House Committee on Higher Education, and Sen. TG Guingona, Vice-chairman of
the Senate Committee on Education.
I will attend this forum. I am particularly interested in
how the country’s colleges and universities are partnering with the private and
corporate sector including multinational companies here, in producing well-trained
personnel, equipped with sufficient technical, financial and cultural knowledge
in maximizing the various opportunities while minimizing certain risks and
threats in business and international trade.
We have to be prepared not only with the influx of
better-manufactured products from our neighbors in the ASEAN, but also the
influx of foreign talents who will come into the country as temporary visitors,
or as long-term investors. Nationals of other countries outside the ASEAN like
those from S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, US and Europe, will also be expanding their
businesses and manufacturing plants in any of the ASEAN member-countries in
order to take advantage of the zero or near-zero tariff trading among AFTA
members.
The key term is "education competitiveness".
How competitive the country's tertiary educational system, both formal and
informal, public and private, should be to enable our young people to adjust
and even excel, in a huge, wide and diverse market. Within the ASEAN alone of
700+ million people, and the rest of the world. Even the short-courses
vocational and technical education sector will have an important role in
preparing a big, well-trained, pool of workers and entrepreneurs.
The forum next week promises to be a huge and wide platform
to exchange ideas and observations, especially from the tertiary education and
corporate sectors. There is also value for civil society leaders in exploring
what are the various threats and opportunities in the AEC and help prepare and
retool our people, to focus more on the opportunities than risks, the positive
than the negative, of a free trade era.
---------See also:
Free Trade 26: "Buy Local" and Protectionism, June 24, 2012
Free Trade 27: Proposed EU-PH FTA and TRIPS Plus, September 24, 2012
Free Trade 28: Exports and Prosperity, March 11, 2013
EMHN 7: Free Trade Improves Public Health, February 26, 2013
Business 360 8: TPP, RCEP, SAARC and Free Trade, June 17, 2013
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