Jakarta. The UK has launched a program worth £25 million (approximately $31.2 million) to supercharge ASEAN’s economic integration, including helping the Southeast Asian bloc open up to trade globally.

The four-year initiative sees the UK providing support to ASEAN members through technical assistance, capacity building, and knowledge-sharing partnerships. This freshly launched ASEAN-UK Economic Integration Program will zero in on three key areas: regulatory reforms for trade, efforts to promote open trade, and financial services development.

As part of the regulatory reform pillar, the UK will support ASEAN to reach internationally recognized standards. And by “promoting open trade”, the UK wants to help ASEAN address trade barriers between its members, and promote the bloc’s global trade flows, including with the UK. 

“We are likely to have a very strong focus on digital trade, which is a top priority for ASEAN. The UK is quite advanced in developing the legal frameworks for digital trade,” UK Ambassador to ASEAN Sarah Tiffin told reporters in Jakarta on Wednesday evening.

“We have a cross-cutting focus on micro, small and medium enterprises [MSMEs[ as well as women across all the three pillars. For instance, we would help ensure that they gain access to financial services,” Tiffin said.

The British government said that the funding for this program was not loans, but came from the country’s spending money as ASEAN’s dialogue partner. The UK also did not make any pre-decisions on how big of a portion would each ASEAN member get from the £25 million program, according to Tiffin. The envoy added: “It is very much a regional program.”

The UK reported that its trade with ASEAN totaled £48.8 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023, up by 5.1 percent from the previous year. Data also showed UK’s exports to ASEAN totaled £25.2 billion over the said period. The regional grouping made up 2.9 percent of what the UK exported to all its trading partners.

The UK officially became ASEAN’s dialogue partner in 2021. However, they still have not signed a trade pact. Likewise, Indonesia does not have a trade agreement with the UK. The government revealed that Indonesia-UK trade amounted to almost $2.7 billion throughout 2023.

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