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This paper maps the items in the proposed WTO Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) with existing initiatives in ASEAN to explore possible synergies between the two.

This paper maps the digital commitments of ASEAN in relevant agreements on e-commerce to show the evolving nature of these commitments. It covers the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA), ASEAN Agreement on Electronic Commerce, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). It also seeks to explain why these commitments vary and list the challenges that ASEAN will face as it moves towards negotiating an ASEAN Digital Economy Framework by 2025, as announced in the 53rd ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) in September 2021.

Although Malaysia is well known as a host economy, there is little research on its investment abroad even though this has been steadily increasing over time. Using a case study approach based on Dunning's OLI framework, seven firms are studied in order to understand their motivations to invest abroad as well as home and host country policies that have facilitated or hindered their investments. The main motivations for these firms to invest abroad are quite varied, ranging from the low labor cost advantage in the host country, saturation of the domestic Malaysian market, as well as the need to enhance their export-competitiveness in third-country markets and to exploit the domestic market potential in other countries. The main home country policy that has benefited the companies in their overseas investment is the full tax exemption on income earned overseas. Host country policies such as tax incentives, while attractive, are not considered to be critical in their investment decisions. Equity constraints are also not considered as obstacles.

This study uses an analytical framework that combines the stages, network and international new ventures theory as well as policy and institutional support, to investigate several case studies in Indonesia and Malaysia. The approach provides richer and deeper insights into the internationalization journey of these MSMEs. Semi-structured interviews based on the same analytical framework are used in all cases. The cases are chosen from a list of exporting SMEs provided by the relevant government agencies in each country, and are also based on the companies' willingness to be interviewed. Malaysian cases were supplementarily obtained through word-of-mouth recommendations following a high rejection rate from companies on the list. This paper is organized as follows. A brief overview of the SMEs in Indonesia and Malaysia is provided in section 2, after the introduction. The findings are presented in section 3, followed by a discussion of the findings. The conclusion summarizes the main findings and provides some policy suggestions relevant at the country and ASEAN level.

Despite the paucity of evidence in developing countries, these countries are keen to utilize e-commerce as a means for internationalizing their SMEs through exports. For Malaysia, the new government elected after the general elections in May 2018 (or GE-14) has continued to uphold the importance of developing a digital economy — an initiative that was promoted by the previous regime. The Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) constitutes a key policy initiative in the raft of policies used to facilitate the digitalization of the Malaysian economy. It is also part of the Digital Silk Road that is envisaged by Jack Ma in his move to align his business expansion plans with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China. Jack Ma was appointed a special economic advisor to the previous government in November 2016 and the DFTZ was launched later in March 2017, in collaboration with Alibaba. An important component of this initiative is to utilize e-commerce as an enabler for SMEs to export. The objective of this paper is to explore the development of the DFTZ and its potential to encourage SMEs to exports.

Private higher education institutions (PrHEIs) are utilized to complement public provision due to financial constraints faced in public provision. However, increasing private provision has raised interesting questions as to who gets educated in these PrHEIs. Is increasing private supply enlarging the circle of opportunity to reach those who might otherwise have been unable to enter university or college? In other words, has the explosion in private supply translated into greater inclusion or increased exclusion? This paper explores the access and equity issues in Malaysia's private higher education system. Malaysia is an interesting case study due to the significant presence of PrHEIs in the country and their contribution toward student enrolment. The findings show that the Malaysian government has provided considerable financial support for the development of PrHEIs, through the provision of incentives, subsidized loans, and scholarships. Quality assurance efforts further enhance the development of private provision, as student loans and scholarships are only provided for students on accredited programs. Therefore, PrHEIs have widened access and equity, with the help of government support. Despite this, Malaysia's model of providing access and equity through private provision may be unsustainable, due to the poor repayment record of student loans and the economic need to reduce the fiscal deficit of the government.

Open Skies, in general, refers to the liberalization of aviation markets that can be pursued on a bilateral, regional, or multilateral basis. At the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) level, liberalization of airfreight and passenger services is targeted by December 2008. This paper seeks to examine the implication of open skies in ASEAN on the airport development strategy in Malaysia. The findings show that although Malaysia has invested substantially in overall infrastructure development, including airports, other member countries within ASEAN, notably Singapore and Thailand, have also followed a similar investment-intensive strategy to develop their international airports into airport hubs. The dream to turn Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) into a regional hub requires Malaysia to undertake several measures to overcome the competitive pressures from neighboring hubs. This includes joining a strategic global alliance group to improve the traffic feed of the national carrier. It will also require the government to accelerate the construction of the new Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) at KLIA. The strategy to build a cargo hub at Senai should be reviewed while the promotion of tourism, especially to non-ASEAN countries has to focus on a distinctive product appeal that will enable the country to differentiate its tourism products from those of regional competitors.

Although Malaysia is well known as a host economy, there is little research on its investment abroad even though this has been steadily increasing over time. Using a case study approach based on Dunning's OLI framework, seven firms are studied in order to understand their motivations to invest abroad as well as home & host country policies that have facilitated or hindered their investments. The main motivations for these firms to invest abroad are quite varied, ranging from the low labor cost advantage in the host country, saturation of the domestic Malaysian market, as well as the need to enhance their export-competitiveness in third-country markets & to exploit the domestic market potential in other countries. The main home country policy that has benefited the companies in their overseas investment is the full tax exemption on income earned overseas. Host country policies such as tax incentives, while attractive, are not considered to be critical in their investment decisions. Equity constraints are also not considered as obstacles. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.

Indonesia is the largest and fastest-growing internet economy in ASEAN. The market size is estimated to be USD27 billion in 2018 and it is forecasted to grow to USD100 billion by 2025. The Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of Indonesia's internet economy is estimated at 2.9% of GDP in 2018. The fast-growing e-commerce in Indonesia is driven by several factors, including a large number of mobile phone users, digitally savvy young consumers, increasing micro, small, and medium enterprises' (MSMEs) participation in online commerce, growing investment in online commerce, and supportive government policies. About three-quarters of online consumers in Indonesia are using mobile devices to shop. Affordable devices and mobile data have encouraged e-commerce penetration especially amongst the young, and this is in a country where about 87 million of its population are between the ages of 16 and 35 years, and digitally savvy.