Brunei

Philippines

POLITICAL BACKGROUND

The Vision:

The vision for the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA). as expressed by EAGA national, regional and local governments, is the development of the East ASEAN subregions and the uplift of the people residing in those areas through the potential of regional economic cooperation. In concrete terms, this means ensuring that EAGA becomes a major location in ASEAN of high value added agro-industry, natural resource based manufacturing and high grade tourism and that non-resource based industries are established in the Growth Area.

The Mission:

The Mission is to operationalize the realization of EAGA's vision. These are :
1. The maximization of individual country gains from traditional comparative advantage with respect to rest of the world
2. The energetic exploitation of complementarities among the subregions
3. The extensive use of shared natural resources, technology and information
4. Joint action to overcome constraints on economic development and
5. The active expansion of intra-industry and intra-firm trade in the Area by fostering specialization and the regionalization of production

The Policies:

In pursuit of these objectives, the specific policies programs and projects should be proposed for implementation in the various sectors of the participating subregional economics in the short term, medium term, and long term.

The recommended policies, programs and projects are to be carried out in seven sectors, three of which are described as "productive" and four as "supportive". The productive sectors are those sectors that directly create wealth while supportive sectors are those that indirectly create wealth.
The Productive Sectors are:

• Agriculture, fisheries, and forestry
• Industrial development and
• Tourism

The Supportive Sectors are:

• Trade, investment and trade in financial services
• Human resource development
• Transport and communications and
• Power and energy

The measures proposed are realistic and practical. They are based on the four subregion's demographic, geographic and natural resource features, economics, factor endowments, and policy and regulatory characteristics. Though expressed in the framework of an over-arching Strategy, they can be implemented quickly and effectively.

SINCE MARCH 1994, Asia's newest growth region has continuously impacted economically and socially on the lives of its people. Several are aware of its potentials, but many others have yet to grasp the concept of the BIMP-EAGA.
The BIMP-EAGA (or simply EAGA) stands for the Brunei Darussalam Indonesia Malaysia the Philippines - East ASEAN Growth Area. It is Asia's largest regional grouping, spanning territories of four ASEAN countries. Some point out that it may also be the fastest growing, in light of its achievements in only four years.
EAGA comprises the entire sultanate of Brunei Darussalam; 10 provinces in the Indonesian islands of Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Irian Jaya; Sabah, Sarawak, and Labuan in Malaysia; and Mindanao and Palawan in the Philippines. Its land area of roughly 1.54 million square kilometers is home to about 45.6 million people (1996).
In today's era of economic cooperation and globalisation, EAGA is consistent with economic policies and specific agreements between members of ASEAN in the implementation of its Free Trade Area (AFTA), and economists advise that EAGA could even be the testing ground for AFTA's CEPT. The functionality of this growth area likewise falls squarely within the frameworks of APEC and the much larger WTO.
While the foregoing scenario is perceivably of political nature, it must be emphasised that EAGA is not a government program, but rather a joint public-private sector mechanism for bringing investment and trade opportunities to the business community, through initiatives of the four member governments.
EAGA's history began with a discussion among ASEAN Heads of State in Brunei Darussalam in October 1992. The endorsements and confirmations of then Indonesian President Suharto (September 1993), Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam (November 1993), and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad (February 1994) paved the way for the BIMP-EAGA Inaugural Senior Officials' and Ministers' Meeting (SOMM) in Davao City, Philippines in March 1994.

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