ASEAN's Investment Environment: A Comparative Study of Foreign Investment Regulations in Selected ASEAN Members

By Dr. C. LIN, Institute of financial and economic law, Feng Chia University

Since the ASEAN leaders were keen on seeking economic gains from foreign investors, it seems that the future cooperation of ASEAN is more focused on attracting investment from within and from outside of ASEAN members, instead of internal trading. In October 2003, the ASEAN leaders gave impetus to the original thought by signing the Bali Concord II to realize the vision of an ASEAN common market by 2020. These efforts are designed to facilitate the flow of goods within ASEAN so as to further AFTA's goals of deeper regional integration and attracting more investment from extra-regional sources. Although its position is one of the most successful examples of regional integration in the Asia-Pacific area, there is no doubt that ASEAN still has to deal with integration difficulties relating to developmental gaps between well-developed and less-developed members, in particular Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The ASEAN leaders are also aware that failure to integrate the diverse markets of ASEAN will mean the group will lose investment and economic opportunities to regional competitors such as China and India. Not only forming a strong trading bloc, but ASEAN member states have adopted a series of measures to catch more foreign investors’ eyes. These legislations provide legal protection for bilateral trade investments and ensure foreign investors’ interests in those countries. Since both the formation of ASEAN and ASEAN members themselves are more focused on attracting foreign investment, strongly influenced by the establishments of the WTO, EU, and NAFTA, one may ask what differences of foreign investment environment and regulations ASEAN members have? In addition, ASEAN member states face different developmental situations, are their investment regulations similar with each other under an united structure of ASEAN? or they have designed or adopted different investment measures to fit their national economic goals? The article hopes to analyze these questions from ASEAN member’s investment environment and selected members’ investment regulation and examine the relationship between developmental demands and related regulations through a comparative study of ASEAN members’ investment regulations (read more).