In recent years, relations between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have witnessed a major boom in various fields, especially the economic and trade fields, which has made ASEAN one of the most prominent trade partners of the GCC countries.
As a culmination of the steadily developing and deepening relations between the two regional organizations, the Saudi capital, Riyadh, will host Friday the first summit between GCC countries and ASEAN, where the summit aims, among other things, to strengthen partnerships and expand strategic cooperation between the two sides, including studying and developing recommendations for the future of relations in the fields of free trade and economic cooperation.
The participation of HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in the GCC countries and ASEAN Summit reflects the great importance that the State of Qatar attaches to strengthening the interdependence between the GCC countries and ASEAN and the country's strong commitment to strengthening and deepening its partnership with the GCC and ASEAN.
Preparations for the summit began two months ago, as the GCC Secretary-General held a preparatory meeting on Aug. 15 with the participation of the Secretary-General, Ambassadors of ASEAN Countries, and a delegation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The steps of rapprochement between the GCC and ASEAN began several years ago, as the Ministerial Council decided at its 18th session, March 1986, to approve initial contacts with some Far East countries, particularly ASEAN and the Republic of Korea for considering the possibility of conducting exploratory contacts with these countries.
At its 66th session, the GCC Ministerial Council, upon the recommendation by the GCC Financial and Economic Cooperation Committee, agreed to begin economic dialogues with South East Asia nations.
In implementation of this, the GCC General Coordinator of Negotiations made a visit to the ASEAN headquarters in Indonesia in Feb. 2000, where he met the ASEAN Secretary-General and its senior officials and discussed cooperation between the GCC and ASEAN.
On April 15, 2007, HE Secretary-General of ASEAN Ong Keng Yong visited the Secretariat General and met with the GCC Secretary-General to discuss means to develop relations, exchange viewpoints about the issues of mutual interest, and benefit from the GCC experience in joint economic action.
The first joint ministerial meeting of the strategic dialogue between the GCC and ASEAN was held in May 2009, and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation between the two secretariats was signed on the sidelines of the meeting. The second ministerial meeting for the strategic dialogue between the two sides was also held on May 31 and June 1, 2010, in Singapore. The meeting approved the action plan, which included economic and cultural fields.
In the implementation of the plan, six specialized working groups were formed in the fields of economy, trade, agricultural investment and food security, education, tourism, energy, culture, and media. The third ministerial meeting between the GCC and ASEAN was held on Nov. 26, 2013.
The Ambassadors of the GCC countries accredited in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, were accredited to the ASEAN Secretary-General according to what was agreed upon in the second joint ministerial meeting of the GCC and ASEAN in Singapore in June 2010.
As for the accreditation of the ambassadors of the ASEAN countries in Riyadh to the GCC, the General Secretariat established the accreditation mechanism, which was approved by the GCC member states.
ASEAN is an economic organization established on Aug. 8, 1967, and includes ten countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia.
The convergences between ASEAN and the GCC lie in the fact that they are influential geographical regions, as the location of the GCC countries acquires great strategic and economic importance in terms of international trade corridors, in addition to the fact that the GCC countries have the largest oil reserves in the world, estimated at 33% of the total global reserves while five countries of the Council export about 18% of the world's oil needs.
As for ASEAN, the population of its countries is about 700 million people, which is equivalent to 8.8% of the worlds population, but ASEANs trade market extends to 2.3 billion people, equivalent to about a third of economic activity in the world and it is expected to expand further, especially after the signing of the economic partnership agreement between the ASEAN and the countries of the Indo-Pacific, the most important of which are China and India.
In 2020, according to the World Bank, the total economic output of ASEAN countries reached $3 trillion, making it the third-largest economy in Asia and the fifth-largest economy in the world after the US, China, Japan, and Germany. The ASEAN economy is expected to grow by 4.7% in 2023 and 5% in 2024, driven by healthy domestic demand, net exports, and a faster recovery in the services sector.
As the Asian powers appear diligent in their pursuit of protecting their interests in the Gulf region, which focuses on providing energy, securing its supplies, and obtaining mutual investment opportunities, the economic data of the GCC countries in recent years indicate an acceleration of their direct foreign investments there, which frames the future relationship for the coming years in the economy, food security and technologies, amid the changes that are ravaging the climate of competition between the traditional major powers globally.
The State of Qatar has moved to raise investment levels and diversify its sources and needs from ASEAN countries, as the past few years have witnessed steady growth, embodied in various Qatari investments that included the energy, financial, real estate, communications, agricultural business, hospitality, and Medicine, and culminated in the opening of a main office for the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) in the Asia-Pacific region in Singapore. Some prominent Qatari companies had a presence in Indonesia, such as Ooredoo, Nebras Power, and the Qatar National Bank Group (QNB).
In Malaysia, Qatar invested about $5 billion in the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) in the state of Johor. In 2013, Qatar signed a project that allows Malaysia to compete with Singapore to become a regional center for the petroleum industries in Southeast Asia.
On the same level, the investments of ASEAN member states in the State of Qatar have increased steadily, with prominent projects in oil and gas, hospitality, information and communications technology, construction, and retail. Some ASEAN member states play a vital role in supporting food security efforts in the State of Qatar as part of its Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV 2030).
As for the Gulf, data published by The Economist magazine in a 2022 report indicates that the volume of investments by the GCC countries in the ASEAN countries amounted to about $13.4 billion in the period between January 2016 and September 2021, and Singapore is one of the members of ASEAN and has a free trade agreement with the GCC countries that dates back to 2008 and covers about 99% of Singaporean domestic goods, and came into force in 2013 while two separate free trade agreements between Malaysia and Indonesia with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries are still being proposed.
The GCC countries are racing against time to invest in ASEAN countries, as Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) has turned to the energy sector in Southeast Asia through the joint oil refinery project in Vietnam and a partnership with the Indonesian corporation Pertamina to develop an oil refinery complex in the east of the Indonesian island of Java. Moreover, Saudi Aramco announced $7 billion worth of investments with Petronas petrochemicals in Malaysia in 2017, which represents the Saudi company's largest investment outside the kingdom.
On the other hand, ASEAN countries are seeking to increase their imports from GCC countries, which amounted to only 6% during the period between 2016 and 2020. According to an economic report issued in 2021, electronics represented 28% of GCC imports from the ASEAN, followed by machinery at 12%.
Last August, ASEAN celebrated its 56th anniversary under the presidency of the Republic of Indonesia under the theme "ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth," emphasizing that this year's theme is in harmony with the growth prospects not only with the constituent countries of this regional grouping but also with their trusted external partners.
In addition to the GCC, the ASEAN countries maintain development, economic, or dialogue participation agreements with 96 countries, the most important of which are China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, the US, and India. According to many reports of international economic institutions, ASEAN can be classified as among the fastest-growing regions economically at the global and regional levels.
