Regional integration and business interest: understanding the role of the ASEAN business advisory council

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Business Advisory Council (ASEAN-BAC) as a region-wide business representative in strengthening the implementation of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2025. Despite the importance of ASEAN-BAC in regional governance, there is a dearth of literature that systematically discusses ASEAN-BAC and how it contributes to the process. To further understand the Council’s role, we interrogate official documents and reports as well as conduct interviews with officials involved with ASEAN-BAC activities. In this article, we argue that ASEAN-BAC contributes to raising the private sector’s concerns in regional processes through numerous platforms that engage ASEAN policymakers nationally and regionally. However, given its structure as a regional network, ASEAN-BAC suffers from internal incoherence in voicing its interest, given the different economic agendas of its members. Such internal incoherence reiterates the conceptualization of ASEAN regional economic integration as a fragmented regionalization.