OECD and ASEAN cooperate on regulatory reform

Regulatory reform, under the denomination of Better Regulation, has greatly contributed to European economic integration. Has its potential been recognized and tapped in other regional groups? While the Asia-Pacific countries (associated in APEC) have been discussing BR since 2000, the South East Asia countries started more recently, in 2007. In both cases, these groups tapped OECD experience and exchanged best practices with its member states.

The APEC countries recognized that regulatory reform contributes efficiently to the promotion of open and competitive markets, and can be a key driver of economic efficiency and consumer welfare. As a result, APEC and OECD agreed a Co-operative Initiative on Regulatory Reform in 2000 and jointly issued in 2005 an Integrated Checklist for self-assessment of regulatory, competition and market openness policies, to build domestic capacities for quality regulation.

More recently, the ASEAN countries have engaged a similar dialogue with OECD since 2007. To date, ASEAN and OECD have organised two regional forums to strengthen cooperation between the two organisations:

• the 1st OECD-Southeast Asia Regional Forum on “Peer Review Mechanism for Policy Reform” in January 2007 in Jakarta,
• the 2nd OECD-Southeast Asian Regional Forum on “Enhancing Competitiveness through Regional Integration” in April 2009 in Bangkok.

A seminar on Challenges in Cooperation and Communication for Development in Southeast devoted to “Aid Effectiveness & Regional Economic Integration Asia” was held on 26-27 April 2010 in Hanoi, Viet Nam.

Other joint-activities include “ASEAN Special Dialogues with the OECD” in October in Paris and the coming “ASEAN-OECD South East Asia Investment Policy Conference” 18 -19 November 2010 in Jakarta. Preparations are also underway for the joint collaboration on the “Southeast Asian Economic Outlook Report” in 2012.

Regulatory reform has been identified as a specially promising tool to bring about greater economic integration and competitiveness. At their meeting in August 2010 in Da Nang, the ASEAN economic ministers agreed to an “ASEAN Regulatory Reform Dialogue” at the senior economic officials’ level early next year to address some of the issues starting with trade facilitation, services liberalization and investment facilitation.

In the meantime, as announced by Secretary General of the OECD, the Organisation will co-host the first ASEAN-OECD meeting on regulatory reform in Hanoi on 25-26 November.