Non-Tariff Barriers is a Problem in the Integration of ASEAN to Achieve the Goal of ASEAN Economic Community

ASEAN is committed to integrating member economies and establishing an AEC. The AEC aims to convert the ASEAN economies into a market and a production place like investment, services, goods and skilled manpower. The NTBs which have been considered by the whole ASEAN to be as threat as tariffs represent serious obstacles to intraregional trade as they threaten to undermine the AEC process in the sense that they are able to impede the flow of goods: raise transaction costs, lower productivity and eventually distort the economic incentives for trading in South-East Asia. The purpose of this paper is to learn the factor and any influence of NTBs on the territory integration in ASEAN towards AEC. This writing will provide an integrated and updated illegal literatures on the AEC and NTBs. An ASEAN customs Union as an initiative to move beyond AEC will be proposed at the end of this paper.