Cambodia Expats Online: Forum | News | Information | Blog

With the fast approach of the ASEAN 2015 implimentation, do you think it will have an effect of the ex-pat life in Cambodia and if so how?

I heard about this hype 3 years ago, a year afterward, and then last year. It aint going to happen anytime soon. The only thing might impact foreigners in the Kingdom is visa stuff, for now.

Last year living in Bali there was an APEC/ASEAN or some other kinda type of Asian summit while I was there. Only thing I heard was getting flights in and out on the two days leading up and two days after was almost impossible. Added to that, I heard of people waiting on the tarmac up to four hours while important tin was being shuffled in.

I'm less than convinced they'll actually kick off the AEC in 2015. Let's wait and see.

Not sure about what they plan to do exactly.
For what I know look a little like the European union, so will probably failed, at least if it is as badly implemented.

Kung-fu Hillbilly wrote:Last year living in Bali there was an APEC/ASEAN or some other kinda type of Asian summit while I was there. Only thing I heard was getting flights in and out on the two days leading up and two days after was almost impossible. Added to that, I heard of people waiting on the tarmac up to four hours while important tin was being shuffled in.

The Denpasar airport got a rebuild for ASEAN, but any poor fool flying in/out during the final prep has to walk about a kilometre along the runway, and then a kilometre back inside the building (I exaggerate, but not by much) to work around the security preparations. My Tourettes seemed to be strongly affected by this.

I am very surprised no one here thinks there will be any change

Well, the new airport is a nice change. The Balinese don't like it, but is that a factor anyway?

^ just before Captain Obvious rocks along once again:
- no, I did not come down in the last shower of rain, and
- I DO realise the OP is about a different summit.

from http://www.asean.org/asean/about-asean/history

"On 8 August 1967, five leaders - the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - sat down together in the main hall of the Department of Foreign Affairs building in Bangkok, Thailand and signed a document. By virtue of that document, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was born."

Originally, it was planned that the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) would start on 01 Jan 2015 but they realised that there was no way that was going to happen, so they moved the start date to 31 Dec 2015.

Yes, very clever... the AEC will still begin in 2015 but just 364 days later.

The AEC is based on the European Economic Community (EEC), the forerunner to the European Union (EU).

You can read what they've got planned so far in the link below. It's a PDF but not too long:

http://www.asean.org/archive/5187-10.pdf