This model is supportive of Asia’s new growth model of a regional production hub and increasing intraregional trade. Moreover, it is a key development strategy for ASEAN to ride with rising Asia as part of an even bigger economic hub of ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+6. The +3 include China, Japan, and Korea, with the+6 expanding to cover India, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition to trade liberalization in goods, liberalization in services will also spur competition. This in turn would lead to lower prices and increased quality of services, as well as better transfer of know-how from outside and within the region, in areas such as business  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  organization and management, and risk management capacity through foreign participation in financial services, for example. But, since services liberalization can involve short term adjustment costs, its progress has been subject to domestic regulations as a country’s institutional and regulatory environment needs to be strengthened before and during liberalization in order to reap eventual benefits. A single market and production base for ASEAN cannot be complete without the free flow of skilled labor. It is also complementary to other freedoms, such as freedom of capital flows (particularly FDI) and services, and together they have important implications for productivity growth and investment. Indeed, it is logical to expect that ASEAN integrated business organizations would be more effectively run by regional than local managers.
Moreover, as people become global citizens, we cannot always rely on rules and regulations, or market rules of the game to bring about their right behavior. In this regard, the educational curriculum needs to embrace elements on transparency, accountability, governance, and ethics. This will help lessen the corruption problem which ranks high in the list of factors that can undermine competitive strength of any economy. While the role of public investment in education is vital, I see increasing financial constraints in this area, as well as in public health and social safety nets, because of short-term fiscal limits and lack of long-term fiscal planning in a number of countries. For education, in particular, while in the short term private sector initiatives for in-house training or vocational educational support may help bridge skill mismatch, this is unlikely to be a sustainable solution. Faced with fiscal limitations, the public sector will need to explore creative publicprivate partnerships to avoid undermining necessary developments in this important area. Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to conclude by emphasizing that in the era of global citizenship, we should capitalize on the major driving force in advancing toward full global citizenship. For Thailand and ASEAN countries, we have the AEC as a natural stepping stone to embrace regional citizenship. Looking ahead, much work remains to be done for a number of countries to improve the readiness of human capital to evolve toward global citizenship.